On the day of the indictment of Profumo and Viola in the Mps case, the president emeritus of Intesa Sanpaolo, Giovanni Bazoli and the CEO of Ubi Banca, Vinctor Massiah, end up on trial together with 28 other managers of the Lombard bank. The charge is obstruction of supervisory bodies and unlawful influence on the assembly. the reactions of Giovanni Bazoli and Ubi Banca were clear.
According to the indictment, a "control room" was created within the institute which decided the appointments of Ubi Banca and its subsidiaries and which succeeded in influencing the decisions of the assembly 'with simulated and fraudulent acts'. This direction was the result of an agreement kept hidden from the Bank of Italy and Consob between the two souls of the bank, namely the Brescia one, linked to Banca Lombarda, and the Bergamo one, which referred to Bpu, the two banks which by merging gave birth to Ubi Banca.
The investigating judge of Bergamo, Ilaria Sanesi, accepted the request of the prosecutor Fabio Pelosi and mandated and sentenced all the defendants including Ubi Banca itself, under indictment under law 231 on the administrative liability of companies for crimes committed by its employees. The trial will start on July 25 before the court of Bergamo.
In the hearing of 9 March Bazoli defended himself by denying that he had committed offenses in the merger operation from which Ubi was born: “I challenge anyone to demonstrate that my aim was not exclusively the good of the Bank. No one will ever be able to prove the indemonstrable: that I acted for personal ends”.
“I take note – commented Giovanni Bazoli – of the decision, which was foreseeable in consideration of the limitations of the Preliminary Hearing. The debate will certainly be the most appropriate place to ascertain that the entire commitment I dedicated to the birth and launch of UBI was based on the utmost correctness and transparency”. UBI Banca's reaction is analkoga, which reiterates: "No obstacles to supervision, no disclosure omissions, no influence in determining the majority in the shareholders' meeting". The institute led by Victor Massiah confirms the correctness of its actions and the total extraneousness to the disputed facts.
