Cesare Geronzi, former chairman of Generali and Capitalia, was sentenced today by the Court of Parma to 5 years in the Ciappazzi trial, a tranche of the main proceeding on the Parmalat crack on the homonymous mineral water company that the ex-owner of Parmalat Calisto Tanzi bought from the Ciarrapico group.
Geronzi was found guilty of fraudulent bankruptcy and aggravated usury, because, according to the indictment, he lobbied for Calisto Tanzi, at the head of the Parmalat group, to buy the Ciappazzi mineral water company in January 2002 from the Ciarrapico group, which was heavily indebted to the Roman bank. Matteo Arpe was also sentenced to 3 years and 7 months, ex-CEO of Capitalia, with the only accusation of fraudulent bankruptcy, regarding a 50 million euro bridging loan granted by the institute of which he was managing director to the agri-food group.
The first instance proceeding saw a total of eight people accused, including the UniCredit group (as former Banca di Roma) condemned by the court of Parma, jointly with the defendants convicted in the trial on the sale of Ciappazzi mineral waters, to compensate the civil parties who had appeared in the proceedings. The amount of the compensation will be established in the civil court.
The Parma judges sentenced the banking group (as the "heir" of the Banca di Roma), together with the convicted defendants, also to the payment of a provision equal to 4% of the nominal amount of Parmalat shares or bonds owned by the civil parties. UniCredit had merged with Capitalia, the former Banca di Roma.
The other convicts are Alberto Giordani (four years), Alberto Monza, Riccardo Tristano and Antonio Muto (all three years old) e Luigi Giove and Eugenio Favale (both at two years and six months).
