Years and years of trial for what was the biggest crash in world banking history. But in the end they managed to win. About seventy Paduan savers involved in the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers – the big US bank that went into default in 2008 following the subprime mortgage scandal – managed to obtain compensation for damages of 700 thousand euros (total).
Savers, assisted by the lawyer Mario Azzarita of Studio SAT of Padua, had joined the initiative promoted in 2009 by the Municipality of Padua, through the then Mayor Flavio Zanonato and his budget assessor and president of the financial company APS, Gaetano Sirone , who had offered Paduan citizens affected by a financial loss the possibility of receiving organized legal assistance in the United States and in Italy.
As far as Italy is concerned, a claim for compensation has been filed against the Consortium of Italian banks PattiChiari and against the intermediary responsible for the sale of the securities. In the process, the investors claimed that they had not been warned of the real riskiness of the investment and that they had not received timely news of the increased risk of Lehman Brothers. Indeed, they were still unaware of it in the spring of 2008, when the bonds had lost about 20% of their value. A few months later, it was September 15, 2008, the American giant announced its intention to avail itself of Chapter 11 of the US Bankruptcy Code, translated: it asked to initiate bankruptcy proceedings.
Judge Maria Antonia Maiolino of the Court of Padua accepted the savers' requests, condemning the intermediary and the PattiChiari Consortium of Italian banks to compensate 700.000 euros.
