Grant Thornton LLP won the dismissal of a lawsuit that accused the firm of accounting malpractice that helped contribute to the 2003 collapse of Italian dairy company Parmalat SpA, Reuters reported yesterday. U.S. District Judge John Darrah adopted the 2009 findings of a Manhattan federal judge in ruling against Parmalat and Enrico Bondi, its foreign representative and former chief executive. The Manhattan judge, Lewis Kaplan, agreed with Grant Thornton and two affiliates that Parmalat was not excused from a legal doctrine, known as "in pari delicto," that prevents a company from recovering for its own fraud. Judge Darrah recently took over the case, and in an April 9 decision rejected Bondi's effort to move it to Cook County Circuit Court, an Illinois state court.
