Piazza Affari has been waiting for the Cassation's ruling on Silvio Berlusconi since the beginning of the week. But let's not expect financial earthquakes that will last more than a day, because the Mediaset trial is more interested in politics than finance due to the obvious repercussions that a definitive sentence or ban from public office of the Cavaliere could have on the government. The sentence will also have some effect on our Stock Exchange and on the galaxy of Berlusconi's companies but today the stock lists are integrated at an international level and often the words of Ben Bernanke or Mario Draghi are worth more than any other event.
Be that as it may, there is no doubt that the planet justice has a significant impact on our financial system this week. It has it above all for the Berlusconi case, but not only. Yesterday came the surprising news of the house and office searches of Elio Catania, the director of Telecom Italia, former top manager of IBM, who is being investigated and accused of insider trading in relation to rumors of a hypothetical capital increase of the telephone group which caused a resounding thud by Telecom Italia.
Unlike what happens in the United States, there are not many insider cases actually ascertained and prosecuted in Italy, but this is certainly a case that is and will cause discussion. And if the accusations were proven, the sanction, reputational even before criminal and economic, would make school. In terms of insiders, the Catania case impresses - at least at first glance - much more than the new charges that are addressed to the former MPS president Giuseppe Mussari, who has also been under investigation since yesterday for insiders for having previously informed institutional authorities about the acquisition by Antonveneta.
But the very conclusions reached by the Sienese judiciary on the Mps-Antonveneta operation are perhaps the most sensational case in the gallery of justice-finance-press relations in our country and it is a case that makes one think. Yesterday the magistrates in charge of the Sienese investigation clearly stated that this is not a story of bribes. "In the acquisition of Antonveneta by Mps - argued Antonino Nastasi, the magistrate who is conducting the investigation together with Giuseppe Grosso and Aldo Natalini - neither criminally relevant conduct, nor personal advantages, nor bribes were found".
It is a sensational turning point: the story of Monte dei Paschi has other criminal aspects and is far from over but, according to the magistrates, it is not a story of bribes. The exorbitant price with which Mps bought Antonveneta may have been, in hindsight and due to the subsequent collapse of the markets, a great blunder but there is no evidence of crimes and bribes. That's no small conclusion.
But a reflection is necessary: it is not the first time that a part of the Italian press, seduced by the idea of shooting a few headlines in large letters, takes fireflies for lanterns. The latest was the Finmeccanica-Guarguaglini case: for months and months the former number one of Finmeccanica was portrayed by the major newspapers as the great architect of the gigantic tangential system of the public holding company. A few months later, the Rome judiciary dismissed his case without even indicting Guarguaglini. It is early to draw definitive conclusions on the MPS case but, when dealing with burning journalistic cases, the use of doubt and prudence is always better than self-confidence. Since no one is perfect, when you're wrong you have to apologize: especially to the readers.
