How Parmalat went sour

What triggered the financial crisis? – Parmalat defaulted on a $185 million bond payment in mid-November. That prompted auditors and banks to scrutinize company accounts. Some 38% of Parmalat’s assets were supposedly held in a $4.9 billion Bank of America account of a Parmalat subsidiary in the Cayman Islands. But on Dec. 19, Bank of America reported that no such account existed. In the ensuing in...