A super-fine of 4,5 million euros. This is the sanction notified by Consob to the financier Alessandro Proto and to the two companies linked to him, the Swiss Pa groupsa and the London-based Proto Organization Ltd, found guilty of manipulating market information on 12 companies listed on Piazza Affari.
This is "false information" - reads the Commission bulletin - on purchases that "never really took place" of shares Tod's, Fiat, Mediaset, Unicredit, Mediobanca, Assicurazioni Generali, Fondiaria Sai, Rcs, Gruppo L'Espresso , Mps, Telecom Italia Media and IlSole24Ore. The purchases had been announced by Proto over a "particularly wide period of time, from December 2010 to January 2013, through the release of a considerable number of press releases and statements, taken up by the main national newspapers".
Consob has ascertained the "malicious" behavior of Proto, Pa groupsa and Proto organization Ltd", which "did not send any defence".
The financier's reply was immediate: "We will certainly appeal and having full and total faith in the Italian judiciary, I am sure that the truth will come out", explains Proto, referring however to the notification of a fine of three million euros which, "added to the previous 400 thousand euros, make a total of 3,4 million. Whoever gave me this fine must have mistaken me for another person, or maybe they got carried away by Scorsese's film 'The Wolf of Wall Street'. Never in the history of Italian finance had such a high fine been imposed without any tangible evidence", concludes Proto, who, after hearing news at the end of January of the first Consob fine of 400 thousand euros for obstructing supervision, declared: "Compared to what is imputed to me I expected much more”.
