Fraudulent bankruptcy. It's the charge that landed five X-Pharma executives behind bars. The drug multinational, based in Agrate Brianza, would have "scrapped" personnel from other companies in the sector without an industrial plan, only to collect advances on each worker's monthly salary and severance pay. Liquidity useful to raise the company's shares, then put up for sale with inflated balance sheets. An operation in the shadow of the Biagi law, which regulates the sale of company branches and to which pharmaceutical companies have made massive use in recent years. A market that has made subcontractor companies flourish to which the giants of the sector unloaded the hot potato of graduate redundancies. Founded in 2005, suddenly closed in July 2008, went bankrupt in March 2009, XPharma was born from the sale of the company branches of Solvay, Fournier and Merck Sharp, to which were added individual hirings, from Bayer, Shering, Ucb and Dompé. Companies determined to cut costs, who preferred not to tarnish their image by directly opening mobility procedures. The closure cost the jobs of 376 pharmaceutical whistleblowers. The arrests were requested by the deputy prosecutors of Monza Walter Mapelli and Giordano Baggio and carried out by the Guardia di Finanza. In handcuffs Maurizio Rollero, 55, former managing director, and four other executives who allegedly took over from Rollero for the sole purpose of draining the last million euros left in the cash register. – GABRIELE CEREDA
Repubblica — 26 May 2009 page 7 section: MILAN
