The Parmalat scandal(2004) Italy's eighth-largest industrial empire, the food giant Parmalat (headquartered in the central Italian city of Parma), the flagship Italian producer of some of the most popular dairy products, cookies and beverages collapsed and its founder Calisto Tanzi been jailed. Several major players from the world of international finance are also under scrutiny. According to the charges, numerous shell companies were set up to generate fake profits for Parmalat and subsidiaries. In addition, Parmalat’s finance director, Fausto Tonna, has told interrogators that he participated in a “cut and paste” forgery, in which a document with Bank of America letterhead was scanned and then added to a document verifying a deposit account with that bank holding over $4.98 billion. The document was then passed through a fax machine several times in order to appear authentic.

In any large business under global capitalism there is an enormous pressure to “perform” in the global market, to bring favorable returns that meet investors’ expectations. Not surprisingly, the details that have surfaced thus far indicate that Parmalat’s fraudulent activities really “took off” when its stock went public in 1990.