Italian lender Banca Monte dei Paschi’s board member Michele Briamonte has been placed under investigation for suspected insider trading by preliminary investigations judge of the Court of Siena.
Prosecutors in Siena allege that Briamonte leaked the content of a board meeting to the press, during which it was decided to seek damages from two former executives, as well as investment banks Nomura and Deutsche Bank, over losses on financial derivatives contracts, according to Reuters reports.
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The information was, reportedly, leaked even before the legal action was filed at the Tribunal of Florence on 1 March.
Monte dei Paschi said that Briamonte has also been banned from exercising his functions as a board member of the Tuscan bank for two months.
The investigation into Briamonte’s actions is part of a wider probe around potential wrongdoing linked to structured product deals carried out by Monte dei Paschi in 2008 and 2009.
A review of the lender’s portfolio of structured transactions began in October 2012, following the discovery of hidden documents on one of the two transactions at the center of the present investigation by Siena’s prosecutors.
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By GlobalDataMonte dei Paschi has also been accused of being brought to the verge of collapse by overpaying for Antonveneta and making bad trades with foreign banks, in deals that were often hidden from regulators and intended to camouflage losses.
