home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
TIME: Almanac 1990
/
1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso
/
time
/
091889
/
09188900.017
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1990-09-17
|
1KB
|
20 lines
BUSINESS, Page 65Business NotesBANKINGCredit Where None Was Due
A lending scheme that apparently took place on a branch
manager's home computer in Georgia has grown into Italy's biggest
banking scandal in years. Last week the disgrace claimed the two
top officers of Italy's largest bank, the state-owned Banca
Nazionale del Lavoro. Chairman Nerio Nesi, 64, and Director General
Giacomo Pedde, 62, resigned after the bank's board heard the
results of an initial probe into a scam in which the bank's Atlanta
branch gave $2.6 billion worth of unauthorized export credits to
Iraq to buy machinery and agricultural goods.
The branch manager, Christopher Drogoul, apparently issued the
credits and kept the records at home. Drogoul, whose possible
motives are still being investigated, has been dismissed. The
Italian bank contends that it will suffer no losses from the scheme
because the credits were guaranteed by U.S. and Iraqi agencies, but
banking experts believe debt-laden Iraq may be hard pressed to make
good if the deals go sour.