Italian bank boss Profumo to face trial for tax fraud
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The head of the world's oldest lender, Banca Monti dei Paschi di Siena, will go on trial for corporate tax fraud in a case linked to his former role as head of UniCredit, officials said on Tuesday.
Alessandro Profumo and 19 others are accused of depriving tax authorities of 245 million euros ($304 million) through the use of a complex financial mechanism that transformed interest into tax deductible dividends.
"I await a public judgment confidently and impatiently as I am certain of the correctness of all my activities," Profumo said in a statement.
"This will also put an end to the inevitable reputational damage that I am suffering, however unjustly," he said.
A judge in Milan ruled that the trial will start on October 1.
The charge is that UniCredit used an Italian subsidiary of Barclays to reduce its taxable revenue in Italy in a mechanism known as 'Brontos'.
Among the defendants are three representatives of British bank Barclays as well as current and former managers of UniCredit, Italy's biggest bank.
Profumo was ousted from UniCredit in 2010 due to a long-running row with the board. During his 13-year tenure he turned UniCredit into an international banking giant through multiple takeovers, particularly in Eastern Europe.
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