The Parmalat Syndrome

How U.S. financial firms -- including Bank of America -- allegedly abetted a multibillion-dollar fraud, and how U.S. regulators are letting them get away with it

Comments (0) By Matt Smith Wednesday, Jan 12 2005

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If Parmalat hadn't failed to make its December 2003 loan payment, and therefore hadn't found it necessary to gin up a phony $4 billion bank statement, it might still be ripping off investors today, without any institution in place to stop it.

From a certain perspective, there's a bright side to this global regulatory failure.

The faked $4 billion bank deposit memo that cratered Parmalat.

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The myriad, allegedly fraudulent transactions that fueled Parmalat's worldwide growth from the mid-1990s to late 2003 involved hundreds of perpetrators, collaborators, and victims in dozens of banks, accounting firms, and law firms. These purported scams were carried out steadily over nearly a decade, incorporating people, bank accounts, and shell firms around the world.

Perhaps the blind eye American regulators have turned on the U.S. nerve center that aided the Parmalat fraud is a perverse kind of jobs program. A jobs program for the Bush era.