JP Morgan and UBS, together with Deutsche Bank AG and Depfa Bank Pic, won a ruling by quashing a request for information from the UK Fraud Office, London judge Peter Gross announced.
“The SFO has an obvious lack of authority in this case. It is with reluctance that I have decided that help should not be given in this case in response to a letter of request” from Milanese magistrate Alfredo Loberto.
The PM accuses the 4 aforementioned banks of having prepared swaps for the city of Milan to pay off the city's debts, of having deceived the municipal officials and finally of having earned 101 million euros in hidden feeds.
The banks deny the fraud saying they settled with the Municipality of Milan in a separate case in March, agreeing to spread the interest rates on the exchanges (swaps) that freed up the payment of the 1,7 billion euro of bonds sold in 2005. Finally lenders argued in the London court in May that the SFO should not be allowed to use "coercive measures" that would not be applicable in Italy.
