Ireland’s Eurofood in middle of Parmalat row

ITALY’S Parmalat and Bank of America wrestled over control of an Irish Parmalat subsidiary, Eurofood, at the European Court of Justice yesterday, in a case that could affect the secrecy of off-shore vehicles.

Parmalat collapsed in 2003, driven into insolvency by murky off-shore financing, and is now seeking $10 billion (€8.2bn) damages for alleged fraud from Bank of America, Citigroup, and former auditors Deloitte and Grant Thornton.

A key battleground has been Parmalat’s Irish financing unit, Eurofood, which Parmalat says is central to the fraud paper trail but which Bank of America, a Eurofood creditor, and Irish liquidators have fought to keep in Ireland, while opposing Italian jurisdiction over the unit’s bankruptcy.