Arezzo, June 15, 2022 – Santa Boschi and all the other defendants were acquitted because the fact does not exist. It is the sentence that closes, at least for now and pending any appeals, the gold consultancy sector, the latest linked to the case of Banca Etruria. A sentence was pronounced shortly after 11, in record time, by judge Ada Grignani.

The charge, in this case, was a simple culpable, non-fraudulent bankruptcy. At stake, 4.3 million offices were entrusted by the last board of directors before the resolution. There were 14 former managers of the credit institution on trial, the best known for the media exposure is certainly Pier Luigi Boschi, father of the former minister Maria Elena.

So far acquitted of all charges before the start of the trials concerning the crash of Etruria. For consultancy, prosecutor Angela Masiello had asked Boschi for a year of imprisonment. The highest request, together with that for Luciano Nataloni.

The others were slightly lower: 8 months for Daniele Cabiati, Carlo Catanossi and Emanuele Cuccaro; 9 months for Alessandro Benocci, Claudia Bonollo, Giovanni Grazzini, Anna Lapini, Alessandro Liberatori and Ilaria Tosti and 10 months for Claudio Salini. But the epilogue is the same for everyone: full acquittal.

According to the accusation, it was an unnecessary expense for the level of consultancy, an imprudent attitude that would have undermined the already bloodless coffers of the Aretine credit institution. Some concerned the merger project with a high-standing institution which was then Banca Popolare Vicenza, for which the Board turned to Mediobanca and well-known law firms in Rome, Milan, and Turin.

Boschi senior lawyer Gildo Ursini, in his harangue, had argued that the bank, in an attempt to achieve the merger requested by the Bank of Italy, had simply chosen the best professionals in Italy, from Mediobanca to the Grande Stevens law firm in Turin, up to the auditing firm KPMG.

The harangue of the defender of the most mediatic of the 14 defendants is the culminating point of a marathon that had seen many lawyers engaged. Giovanna Corrias for Claudio Salini, Luca Fanfani for Emanuele Cuccaro, former deputy general manager, Jean Paul Castagno and Valerio Collesi for Cabiati, Giacomo Gonzi for Rosanna Bonollo and Palma’s lawyer for Ilaria Tosti. Then Alessandro Traversi for Alessandro Benocci, Alessandro Liberatori, Giovanni Grazzini and Luigi Nannipieri, Gaetano Viciconte for Luciano Nataloni and Guglielmo Giordanengo for Claudia Bugno. The line is identical: other than gold consultations, they only tried to save Bpel. And it is the line that Judge Grignani made his own with the final sentence.