What have British Telecom Italia top management and auditors combined?
21 people have been indicted in the investigation by the Milan Public Prosecutor's Office into the alleged accounting irregularities of British Telecom Italia. All the details
21 people have been indicted in the investigation by the Milan Public Prosecutor's Office on the alleged accounting irregularities of the British Telecom Italia telecommunications company. The Gup of Milan, Manuela Cannavale, indicted 20 managers, both of the Italian division and of the London parent company, as well as British Telecom itself, as a legal person in compliance with Law 231/2001 on administrative liability of entities. The offenses concern false accounting for 220 million euros, false communications and false invoicing for 57 million in the 2013-2016 financial statements.
THE CONDUCT OF THE INVESTIGATION: THE INVESTIGATED
Judge Manuela Cannavale has accepted the request of Silvia Bonardi pm and Monia Di Marco and set the start of the trial next January 26 in front of the Second Criminal Chamber of the Court. As reported by Radiocor del Sole 24 Ore among the people indicted are the former president of BT Italia Corrado Sciolla, the former CEO Andrea Giovanni Bono, the former directors, Alessandro Clerici (also CFO), Richard Cameron and Luca Sebastiani (also CFO), and members of the board of auditors Guido Lenzi, Giuseppe Sancetta and Alberto Tron Alvarez.
REVIEWER PWC ALSO INVESTIGATED
Among the suspects also Andrea Alessandri, as auditor of PriceWaterhousecoopers and former head of the audit team of Bt Italia's financial statements, the only one to answer for falsehoods in the reports or communications of the heads of the statutory audit.
THE SENTENCE
The former CFO Stefania Truzzoli was sentenced to one year with suspended sentence for resorting to the shortened procedure for the sole crime of false corporate communications while she was acquitted for fraud in public supplies.
OTHER NAMES
The former president Luis Satorre Alvares remains out of the process, for whom the Gup has declared the non-place to proceed due to the statute of limitations. The investigation had also overwhelmed the former CEO of BT Italia, Gianluca Cimini, who passed away last summer.
WHAT THE PRESS WRITTEN
As explained in 2019 by La Stampa, the investigation starts from afar since, in January 2017, the former CEO Gavin Patterson denounced alleged accounting irregularities for the activities of British Telecom Italia.
BRITISH TELECOM ITALIA: THE FIRST STEPS OF THE INVESTIGATION
But what happened? The Italian subsidiary between 2008 and 2014 had recorded losses every year up to a total figure of 242 million euros. From 2015 there seemed to be a rise, a small profit of 1.6 million, which became 35.5 in the following year.
THE MATCH OF BUDGETS
At this point, a whistleblower reports to the parent company that the financial statements in the Italian subsidiary do not conform to reality, that the Italian managers have acted illegally to inflate the financial statements for the four-year period 2013-2016 to mask the losses. From that point the reaction of the British giant starts.
CUSTOMERS
British Telecom, which in Italy had its customers Eni, FCA and numerous public administrations, first of all hunted the then top management of the Italian subsidiary and then cut the estimates on revenues and profits, caused by a shortfall of 530 million pounds. On 21 March 2017, the company filed a complaint with the Prosecutor claiming that the alleged illegal conduct of Italian managers was against the interest of the company.
WHAT THE CORSERA WRITTEN
However, as reported by Corriere della Sera, during the investigation, some of the Italian executives, such as the former financial director of BT Italia, Luca Sebastiani, deny the version of BT and pass the accusation ball to the parent company claiming that all the main financial transactions operated by BT Italia were shared with the managers of BT Europe.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/cosa-hanno-combinato-vertici-e-revisori-di-british-telecom-italia/ on Wed, 11 Nov 2020 06:10:41 +0000.