Parmalat, the Italian food and dairy giant, filed another civil lawsuit against a major financial institution on Thursday, contending that managers at the Bank of America helped structure a series of transactions that allowed more than US$10 billion to be "diverted, squandered or taken from the company" before it collapsed last year.
The suit, which was filed in US District Court in North Carolina, where Bank of America is based, is the fifth complaint against Parmalat's former lenders and auditors. It comes just a day after the company reached a US$197 million settlement with Banca Intesa, Italy's largest bank, over separate charges of financial impropriety.
The lawsuit was filed by Enrico Bondi, a trustee appointed by the Italian government to help Parmalat emerge from bankruptcy protection. It charges that between December 1997 and December 2001, Bank of America helped certain Parmalat senior managers structure and execute "a series of complex, mostly off-balance-sheet transactions that were deliberately designed to conceal Parmalat's insolvency."
Meanwhile, the bank and its executives collected tens of millions of dollars in interest, improper payments and transaction structuring fees, the complaint said.
Betsy Weinberger, a Bank of America spokeswoman, said that the Parmalat complaint "defies logic and the facts" in suggesting that her company knew about the Parmalat fraud and yet continued to lend it millions.
Bank of America, she said, played no role in disguising Parmalat's true condition and did not arrange improper transactions.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique