Grant Thornton US won a dismissal of a lawsuit from Italian dairy company Parmalat that alleged accounting malpractice prior to its 2003 bankruptcy, according to Bloomberg.
Parmalat collapsed in December 2003, as a result of a fraud involving the understatement of Parmalat's debts by nearly $10bn and the overstatement of net assets by $16.4bn.
Parmalat and its foreign representative Enrico Bondi sued Grant Thornton US, alleging accounting malpractice, negligent misrepresentation and civil conspiracy.
In 2009 New York District judge Lewis Kaplan dismissed the claims based on the in pari delicto doctrine, or the theory that one cannot sue to recover damages from a fraud in which one was a willing participant.
In the ruling, Kaplan said that "Plaintiffs simply cannot get around the fact that Parmalat, by means of the transactions complained of, raised and spent millions of Euros for corporate purposes," however Bondi appealed and requested the case be moved to an Illionis state court, arguing that the State law would not impose in pari delicto.
However, US district judge John Darrah rejected Bondi's effort to move the case to a state court, reasoning "these cases remained unresolved for nearly 10 years, and it is unlikely that a remand back to state court will result in more timely dispositions."
He also ruled in favour of Grant Thornton, dismissing the case for the same reason as Kaplan did in 2009.