Four years after the rescue of a perimeter of the Popolare di Vicenza by Intesa Sanpaolo at the price of 1 euro, as agreed with the Mef, the Milanese bank must present itself in the courtroom in November as civil liability. That is the person who could be called upon to compensate the shareholders and savers who have filed a civil action.
The Milanese group had taken over, in June 2017, some assets of BPvi and Veneto Banca, in bankruptcy, explicitly avoiding in the agreements with the State, the lawsuits against the former shareholders who had found themselves in the hands of paper and paper instead of the shares paid over 60 euros. A bailout similar, in some respects, to the one underway by Unicredit with Mps, the latter weighed down by over 6 billion possible legal actions and, once again, in the face of a capital strengthening.
The criminal section of the court of Vicenza is discussing the civil liability of Intesa Sanpaolo before which the trial of Samuele Sorato, the former general manager of the Veneto population, is underway, accused of rigging, obstacle to supervisory bodies and forgery in prospectus, whose position, for health reasons, has been removed from the main proceedings in which former president Gianni Zonin and other former managers have already been sentenced.
The Court of Vicenza, in a decree issued by the Board led by Judge Chiara Cuzzi, therefore authorizes in summons Intesa Sanpaolo “as the recipient of the request for compensation of the patrimonial and non-patrimonial cloths all formalized by the civil parties”. And he invites the Milanese institute to appear before the trial hearing scheduled for November 10 in Vicenza.
For BPvi shareholders this means that if the actual responsibility of the former general manager Samuele Sorato, Banca Intesa, is ascertained at the outcome of the trial, he would have to compensate the pecuniary and non-pecuniary damage deriving from the crimes of the accused. To report the news are the lawyers Vincenzo and Camilla Cusumano, of the law firm Legals of Padua and Verona who are among the 12 lawyers who have asked the court to cite Intesa
as civilian responsible in the criminal trial against Sorato, accused of rigging offenses and false in prospectus.
“A new breath of hope for the savers of Banca Popolare di Vicenza who have had their life savings canceled out”, comments the lawyer Camilla Cusumano, also an Adusbef delegate. In fact, BPVI shares were worth 62.50 euros until April 2015, the date on which the price had dropped to 48 euros. In the following months the value continued to fall until it reached zero with the liquidation of the two Veneto populations. “The incredible aspect of this affair and that the shares had been sold as a safe product because not listed on the stock exchange, instead, precisely this absence of listing had caused the Board to inflate the value without any connection with reality”, adds Cusumano.
Last March the Court of Vicenza had sentenced in first instance the former president of BPvi, Gianni Zonin, to six years and six months (the prosecutors had asked for ten years), inflicted six years and three months on the former deputy director general Emanuele Giustini , six years for the other two deputy dg Paolo Marin and Andrea Piazzetta. On the other hand, former director Giuseppe Zigliotto and manager Massimiliano Pellegrini were acquitted. All of them had ended up on trial for the crimes of stock manipulation, an obstacle to the supervisory bodies and false prospectus.
Two months later, in June, the civil court upheld the appeal of twenty savers who had bought shares in the Banca Popolare di Vicenza, sold by Banca Nuova between 2013 and 2015, and then found themselves with securities they no longer had. value. The judges upheld the appeals and sentenced Intesa Sanpaolo, which absorbed Banca Nuova, to pay compensation of over 270 thousand euros and legal costs of around 130 thousand euros. (All rights reserved)
