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News
• January 04 2004
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Directors of Malta based Parmalat companies arrested
Julian
Manduca
Several
of the directors of the Parmalat owned companies in Malta were arrested
January 1 and are being investigated by Italian police for massive fraud,
MaltaToday can reveal. This revelation continues to raise concern that
Malta is being used as a centre for dubious dealing and crass tax avoidance.
In Malta, Parmalat SpA set up three companies, Parmalat Malta Holding
Limited, Parmalat Trading Limited, which are Maltese companies and Parmalat
Capital Finance Limited, which is registered in Malta and is the owner
of a subsidiary in the Cayman Islands: Bonlat Financing Corporation.
Several of Parmalat Capital Finances’s and Parmalat Malta Holding
Limited’s current and past directors are now under investigation
including Fausto Tonna, former financial controller of Parmalat and
Mr Tanzi’s (the founder of Parmalat’s) second-in-command;
Luciano del Soldato, the present financial controller of Parmalat who
took over from Mr Tonna; and Giovanni Bonici, chairman of Parmalat Venezuela.
All three have been arrested. Associated Press, which detailed new admissions
and finger-pointing by Parmalat executives and employees implicated
in the scandal, has revealed new admissions made by some of the directors:
"Four times a year, the system of putting together false documents
was activated on the occasion of the four balance sheet operations that
the company had," a document quotes Parmalat's former chief financial
officer, Fausto Tonna, as telling prosecutors a few days before he was
detained January 1, 2004.
The
Parmalat Malta connection
Parmalat
Capital Finances’s and Parmalat Malta Holding Limited’s current
and past directors are under investigation including Fausto Tonna, former
financial controller of Parmalat and Mr Calisto Tanzi’s (the founder
of Parmalat’s) second-in-command; Luciano del Soldato, the present
financial controller of Parmalat who took over from Mr Tonna; and Giovanni
Bonici Chairman of Parmalat Venezuela. They have been all arrested.
Associated Press, which detailed new admissions and finger-pointing
by Parmalat executives and employees implicated in the scandal, has
revealed new admissions made by some of the directors: "Four times
a year, the system of putting together false documents was activated
on the occasion of the four balance sheet operations that the company
had," a document quotes Parmalat's former chief financial officer,
Fausto Tonna, as telling prosecutors a few days before he was detained
January 1, 2004.
The document quotes another official, former financial executive Luciano
Del Soldato who was nabbed in the same sweep, as saying he directed
that documents be forged on a computer that had a phoney Bank of America
logo stored on the hard drive. "I should specify that recently
we destroyed the computer's memory," Del Soldato said.
Company employee Gianfranco Bocchi, who was also detained today, said
Del Soldato had instructed another employee to destroy the computer
with a hammer.
As could be expected auditors Deloitte & Touche were not in a position
to reply to any questions put to it by MaltaToday on the Parmalat companies
registered in Malta. Auditors are duty bound to protect the confidentiality
of their clients and Deloitte & Touche would not answer questions
about figures appearing in the accounts they audit.
Bonlat Financing Corporation, the company which is fully owned by the
Malta registered Parmalat Capital Finance Limited, is at the centre
of the entire scandal as it all came to light when Parmalat claimed
Bonlat held US$5 billion with the Bank of America, which did not exist.
Bonlat has since been taken under the control of liquidators Ernst &
Young, while according to CNN "Parmalat Capital Finance Ltd, was
placed in provisional liquidation by the Caymans Grand Court on Christmas
Eve."
According to the accounts of the Malta company for 2002, Parmalat Capital
Finance Ltd "was incorporated in the Cayman Islands on 24 October
1997. On 31 March 2002, the directors resolved, with effect from that
date, to transfer the management and control of the company to Malta."
Parmalat Capital Finance Limited was registered in Malta on 1 April
2002, as an ‘Oversea company.’
According to the same accounts the value of the investment in Bonlat
Financing Corporation, which is 100 percent owned by PCFL, is valued
at US$2.
Other Parmalat related companies have been subjected to investigations
by police, but so far the ‘Maltese’ Parmalat companies have
not come under official scrutiny.
According to an article appearing in di-ve.com: "Italian and Swiss
auditors are looking for 250 million euros believed to have passed through
Malta, or even invested on the islands.
"According to a Brazilian financial institution questioned in 2001,
it had issued a 500 million Euro bond. Out of this, half (250 million)
went to pay for a debt in Brazil, while the rest was sent to offshore
banks in the Cayman Islands, which was eventually lost. In preliminary
investigations it has turned out that the money had ended in Maltese
industries."
According to the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, the international
press is scrambling to investigate over 250 hundred companies related
to Parmalat in an attempt to get to the bottom of a web of transactions
which siphoned millions from the company.
The press is trying to unravel a multitude of payments between so called
‘shell’ companies in off-shore tax shelters such as Malta,
the Cayman Islands or Dutch Antilles, or elsewhere in Europe and the
United States.
When MaltaToday contacted the Malta Financial Services Authority, its
chairman, Professor Joe Bannister said: "The MFSA has to date received
no official enquiry about anything to do with the Parmalat affair.
"The MFSA has, since the first signals of the impending crisis
came out some three weeks ago, been doing its best to keep developments
under close review and to keep abreast of the daily stream of reports
in the international media on the unfolding Parmalat affair."
According to the accounts of Parmalat Capital Finance Limited as verified
by Deloitte and Touche, the company was engaged "in the business
of procuring and placing funds within the Parmalat group and in the
raising of finance for the group from institutional and other investors."
The company is exempt from exchange control regulations in terms of
an exemption given in Maltese law in 1972.
Malta is clearly considered a tax haven by many and while companies
may not have done anything illegal, they avoid the higher tax rates
faced in their home countries.
In the year ended 2002, the PCFL registered a profit of US$ 188,461,695.
That profit figure was reduced by US$ 158,367,848 due to a loss on currency
exchanges, leaving a profit of US$30,093,847.
On that profit taxation at 35 percent was US$ 10,532,846, but because
of double taxation relief of US$ 6,212,880 and an adjustment for "exempt
profits arising prior to the date of transfer of the management and
control of the company to Malta, which are not subject to Malta tax"
of US$ 2,633,211, the tax due in Malta was a mere US$ 1,686,755.
According to the Financial Times, rating agency Standard and Poor, auditors
Deloitte and Touche, analysts in London and fund managers in the US,
nobody paid attention to Parmalat’s companies abroad until Parmalat
admitted it could not find 40 million Euro to pay one of its bonds.
The income of PCFL declared at the year-end was of US$ 18,236,177 in
investment income and US$ 243,290,845 in net interest from group undertakings.
From those amounts were deducted finance costs of US$72,176,220 and
administrative costs of US$ 889,107. No breakdown or explanation for
the administrative costs were given in the accounts.
Asked about the possible damage to Malta’s reputation by the Parmalat
scandal, Prof Bannister said: "From the information known to it
to date, the MFSA envisages that the participation of these Maltese
companies was a very marginal one even when viewed against a backdrop
of the 260 or so companies scattered all round the globe which formed
the Parmalat multinational.
"The well-publicised reasons for Parmalat’s problems are located
elsewhere. There is no reason why Malta should suffer any reputational
risk. The real issues at stake here are quite different and seem to
relate to grave allegations of forgery, misappropriation, incorrect
statements to investors and false accounting."
Professor
Bannister clarified some misconceptions: "In cases such as this,
one inevitably finds some misunderstandings and confusion as to what
or which regulators should have seen or done something. You will be
aware of the very heated debate in Italy as to presumed lapses by the
Banca D’Italia and the Consob.
"The Parmalat companies present in Malta are not licensed or supervised
companies, but they are normal trading entities, where all the relevant
corporate information is accessible to the public in our Registry website
facility or at the Registry itself in Mriehel.
"The identity of the shareholders is disclosed and all documents
have been duly filed as required by our company legislation, which is
very demanding and in line with UK and EU requirements. It is also interesting
to note that all the three entities carry the Parmalat name and there
has never been no attempt to conceal the connection."
Professor Bannister was adamant that Malta’s reputation remains
intact: "It is being repeatedly stated in the media, that these
three companies were offshore companies. In reality, none of these companies
was an offshore company. Two were actually registered here as normal
companies under the Companies Act. The third was what is known as an
‘oversea company’ which means that it is a branch or a place
of business of a company registered outside Malta. "These facts
may be easily verified at the Registry of
Companies. The registration of offshore companies stopped on the 31
December 1996 following amendments to the relevant legislation. All
the three above-mentioned Parmalat companies came to Malta much, much
later.
Parmalat’s
problems intensify
The eight largest Italian business finds itself gasping for breathing
space following revelations in the media on December 19 that Bank of
America Corporation was not holding about US$4.9 billion of its funds
as the Italian company had reported in September. Since then, the estimated
amount of money missing from its balance sheet has ballooned.
Founder and owner Calisto Tanzi has admitted to have taken about EUR500
million (US$624 million) from the Parmalat group. The affair has grown
into one of Europe's biggest financial scandals, hitting global banks
and small-time investors, as well as dairy farmers.
Mr Tanzi is currently in custody and being subjected to interrogation
in Italy while an inquiry has started in Ecuador as it has been suggested
that some Euro 800 million may gave been left there.
Tanzi visited Ecuador over the holiday period after a ‘rest’
in Spain. The enigmatic head of the Parmalat empire, was always considered
a serious businessman. He avoided the media limelight and surplus cash
was devoted to worthy causes such as the restoration of Parma's cathedral.
While Parma has a reputation for high-living sensuality, Mr Tanzi demonstrated
a high-minded sobriety. He told an interviewer from a popular women's
magazine that he would opt for Rita Levi Montalcini, the almost centenarian
Nobel physics laureate, as his ideal dinner companion, over the charms
of Monica Bellucci or Sharon Stone. He voiced the same serious-mindedness
in relation to business, telling a financial reporter: "What do
you mean new economy! I'm proud to belong to the old-old economy!"
Tanzi however had links with the Christian Democrats in Italy and his
family owned limousines and a valuable collection of 19 century paintings.
Encouraged by the success of Parma football club which Parmalat owned
Tanzi bought other clubs in Brazil, Russia, Mexico and Uruguay, and
was said to be jealous of the success of another Italian food magnate
Pietro Barilla.
Things must have started to go wrong for Tanzi as his empire expanded
too quickly and investments in television, a high advertising budget
and new expensive company headquarters must have stretched his resources.
In Malta, Labour spokesman for Industry John Attard Montalto revealed
that Parmalat was one of four companies interested to invest in Malta
when Labour was elected to government in 1996. According to Attard Montalto,
the approach was rejected when it was decided that Parmalat’s presence
in Malta could do more harm than good, especially to the agricultural
sector. Attard Montalto said the decision not to accept the Italian
giants was now vindicated.
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