Antonio Fazio

Antonio Fazio ( born October 11, 1936 in Alvito, province of Frosinone ) is the former president of the Bank of Italy Banca d' Italia. He was nominated in 1993 for lifetime for this post and was considered one of the most powerful men in Italy. On 19 December 2005 he was forced to resign in the wake of a bribery scandal and abuse of office.

Criticism

Fazio was as central bank chief very controversial. He was a total lost several billion euro massively in the criticism, as thousands of Italian small savers through the fraudulent bankruptcies of Cirio and Parmalat and by the bankruptcy of Argentina. Under fire he fell but especially when he tried to foreclose the ailing Italian banking market against takeovers by foreign competitors and thus the acquisition of Banca Antonveneta by ABN AMRO and Banca Nazionale del Lavoro by Spain's Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria ( BBVA ) to prevent. It encouraged and supported, by abusing his position, the two much smaller institutions Banca Popolare di Lodi and Unipol to act as a white knight. From a widely branched banking scandal has been exposed, which led to the arrest of several people involved, including Gianpiero Fiorani ( former head of the Banca Popolare di Lodi ), Giovanni Consorte ( former head of Unipol ) and Emilio Gnutti, Danilo Coppola and Stefano Ricucci ( Financiers with funds unexplained origin).

Condemnation

In May 2011, Fazio was sentenced by a court in Milan in the first instance to a term of imprisonment of four years. He also has a fine of 1.5 million euros to pay and may hold a public office for four years. He must now hope that the proceedings against him expire before they reach the third instance.