Two former Grant Thornton auditors today became the first accused to stand trial in the multi-billion-euro Parmalat scandal, charged by prosecutors with misleading markets as the Italian food group collapsed.
Mr Lorenzo Penca, chairman of Grant Thornton's former Italian unit, and Mr Maurizio Bianchi, lead partner on the Parmalat audit, asked in October to skip preliminary hearings and are the first to face trial.
The two have been split off from a main group accused by Milan prosecutors of wrongdoing at the dairy group.
A judge has yet to rule on prosecutors' requests for the remaining 27 former Parmalat executives, bankers and auditors to be tried along with three financial institutions.
Mr Penca and Mr Bianchi, who were both briefly put under arrest after Parmalat imploded, sat with their lawyers in the first benches of the court room but made no statement.
The judge took requests from parties wishing to be added to the list of plaintiffs, a move that could allow them to claim damages, and then adjourned the trial until March 17th.
Italian bank Sanpaolo IMI, representing 30,000 Parmalat bondholders, was among those asking to be a co-plaintiff.
Magistrates have accused both Mr Penca and Mr Bianchi of market rigging - conspiring to issue false information about the financial condition of Parmalat that altered the price of Parmalat shares and bonds.
The two men have denied wrongdoing and their lawyers say they have shown they want to get to the bottom of the scandal, blowing the whistle on an account at a Parmalat unit in the Cayman Islands.