NY judge dismisses Parmalat lawsuits against Bank of America and an auditing firm

Parmalat to appeal NY judge’s dismissal of suits

NEW YORK — A judge Friday dismissed lawsuits seeking to hold Bank of America Corp. and auditing firm Grant Thornton International responsible in Italian dairy giant Parmalat’s 2003 collapse, a decision Parmalat said it will appeal.

U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan said it was necessary for several reasons to throw out three lawsuits seeking to hold the financial companies liable, including because there is no reliable evidence that “miscreant corporate officials stole with the defendants’ culpable participation.”

In a statement, Parmalat said it believed the written ruling was erroneous and said it will appeal.

Grant Thornton said in a statement that the ruling “is fully supported by the evidence.”

The company had been sued by Enrico Bondi, the chief executive of the reorganized Parmalat, and Parmalat subsidiary Parmalat Capital Finance Ltd.

Bank of America spokesman Timothy Gilles said the Charlotte, N.C.-based company was pleased with the judge’s conclusion that there was no basis to hold the bank culpable when it “had no knowledge of the fraud and was damaged by it.”

“As we have said since the outset of the Parmalat bankruptcy, Bank of America always believed we were dealing with a strong, honest and profitable company,” he said. “We had no knowledge of the Parmalat fraud.”

Kaplan ruled there was no evidence the companies knew about the massive $18 billion collapse in 2003 that remains Europe’s largest corporate bankruptcy.

The dairy conglomerate known for its long shelf-life milk grew from a small dairy distributor in Parma, Italy, into a diversified, multinational food company by 1990.

The judge noted that the company between 1990 and 2003 opened 136 production facilities and enlarged its work force to 36,356 employees from 1,217 and its product line to 10,000 items. During the period, it expanded operations to 30 countries from five.