Parmalat sued its former auditors Deloitte & Touche and Grant Thornton on Wednesday in its second $10 billion lawsuit against financial partners that Parmalat says helped drive it into insolvency. Parmalat said it was seeking damages from auditing firms Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu and Grant Thornton International and their Italian and U.S. affiliates. "Because the defendants failed to properly audit Parmalat and in many cases with defendants' active participation, something in the order of $10 billion has gone out the door and been stolen, squandered or wasted by Parmalat insiders," Parmalat said in the suit, filed in the United States. The new administrators of the dairy and food company want to recover funds from former partners they say either tolerated or promoted schemes that helped bring down the global group last December. The company has already taken several of its former bankers to court, both in Italy and the United States. In Wednesday's lawsuit, filed in the state of Illinois, Parmalat is looking for compensation on 12 counts ranging from theft to professional malpractice. Parmalat said in the suit the audit firms "each intentionally or with gross recklessness disregarded its known duty to Parmalat." --more 2319 Local Time 2019 GMT
