PARMA, Italy (Reuters) - An Italian court on Tuesday acquitted four former JPMorgan (N:JPM) executives from accusations of fraudulent bankruptcy in a probe over the U.S. bank's role in the 2003 collapse of dairy group Parmalat (MI:PLT), a judicial source said.
A judge in the northern Italian town of Parma where the Parmalat is headquartered ruled in favor of a request from prosecutors to acquit JPMorgan's former Italy head Federico Imbert, his deputy Gabriele Schiavi as well as top executives Alessandro Mitrovich and Alessandro Rombelli.
Parmalat collapsed at the end of 2003 with a 14 billion euros hole in its accounts. The crisis erupted when the company said a 4 billion euro bank account held by a Cayman Islands unit did not exist, forcing management to seek bankruptcy protection and triggering a criminal fraud probe.
The JPMorgan former executives had been accused of hastening the bankruptcy of Parmalat by helping the company issue bonds when it was already facing financial problems.
