(ANSA) - MILAN, 20 JUL - There are 64 former directors and executives of the metropolitan city of Milan, including the ex-mayor Giuliano Pisapia but also councilors and councilors of the adjoining Colli and Penati, and two financial intermediaries (Bankof America and Dexa Prediop spa) to which the Regional Prosecutor of the Court of Auditors for Lombardy has notified an invitation for the conclusion and management of some derivative contracts ("swaps") that are manifestly uneconomical for the entity.
A situation that, according to the Prosecutor of the Court, has created a damage to the tax authorities "at present" in excess of 70 million euros. The preliminary dispute of administrative - accounting liability for compensation was made after consultation with the officials of the Support Unit to the Judicial Authority of the Bank of Italy and an investigation activity in which the Economic and Financial Police Unit of the Milan Finance Police collaborated.
In a note, the Prosecutor of the Court of Auditors speaks of "an undesirable concealment of the real financial conditions underlying transactions in derivatives".
Pisapia is called into question not for the preliminary investigation and the swaps (which date back to much earlier) but because "disregarding both the opinion provided by the Attorney General and the lawyers in charge" he decided to "ignore the claim notified to him by Merrill Lynch and Dexia "and therefore not to appear in the judgment then brought and won by Dexia before the English Court. In this way it would have caused the entity a" serious prejudice in terms of procedural costs and foreclosure costs for the subsequent action for annulment "of the financial instrument.
The invitation to be heard, explains the press release, will be used by the Public Prosecutor to calibrate the responsibilities of each one in causing the damage and therefore the correctness "of the subjective division of the amounts under investigation". (HANDLE).