There is still a thread that is not clear in the convoluted story that has overwhelmed the Monte dei Paschi di Siena in the years between 2014 and 2017: that of the cimpaired income or NPL. To answer for that situation, yesterday the indictment for the former presidents of MPS Alessandro Profumo e Massimo Tononi, the then to Fabrizio Viola and the former manager Arturo Betunio. This is what the preliminary hearing judge decided Fiammetta Modica at the end of the preliminary hearing held in the bunker courtroom in Milan.
The preliminary hearing concerns the two so-called 'ter' and 'quater' strands (now merged into a single proceeding) on the alleged incorrect accounting of bad loans by former top management of Monte dei Paschi di Siena, in the period from 2014 to 2017. The request for indictment on charges of false social communications It relates to the 2015 financial statement and the 2016 half-yearly report.
The lawyers of the four have always denied any wrongdoing. MPS, in a note, said that the decision has no impact on the bank.
The NPL procedures have so far led to 18 positive civil rulings in favor of Banca MPS, which has always adopted, as in this case, conservative accounting policies. The case represents the latest development in a series of legal proceedings related to the 2017 bailout of the troubled Tuscan creditor. According to court documents, the Milan prosecutor's office has argued that the false accounting from 2014 to 2017 was used to hide the bank's insolvency, which would have blocked the government bailout.
Yesterday, the Milan judge acquitted five other MPS executives, including former presidents Alessandro Falciai and Stefania Bariatti, and former CEO Marco Morelli, of all charges relating to the other years under investigation.
The alleged crime concerns themisclassification of loans as “in bonis” instead of “deteriorated”.
Italy injected €5,4 billion into MPS in 2017 as part of a so-called precautionary recapitalization. Under European Union rules, this only applies to healthy companies, so that public money is not used to cover any actual or anticipated losses. The Italian Treasury negotiated the terms of the bailout with the European Commission at the time and ultimately agreed to reduce its stake in the bank, which stood at 68 percent after the bailout.
Under the guidance of the CEO Louis Lovaglio, the bank restructured, benefiting from higher interest rates and lower costs. Lovaglio raised 2,5 billion euros at the end of 2022 to finance layoffs.
The story thus resurfaces for the new strand, while everything seemed to be archived by the decision of the Court of Appeal of Milan which, at the end of 2023, had acquitted the top management of MPS "because the fact does not exist", radically overturning the first-instance sentence of 2020. That verdict concerned the trial for false accounting and stock market manipulation, focused on the investigation relating to the accounting of the Santorini and Alexandria derivatives and the Court of Appeal had issued the acquittal by virtue of the lack of evidence to support the charges.
