Reggio news service
by Manuela Catellani
REGGIO EMILIA – Interrogation of guarantee this morning for the former CEO of Iren and former president of the Genoa Port System Authority, Paolo Emilio Signorini, in prison in Marassi since Tuesday on charges of corruption as part of the maxi investigation which also led to the arrest of the president of Liguria, Giovanni Toti
Questioned for about half an hour by the investigating judge Paola Faggioni in the Genoese district house, he was defended by the lawyer Enrico Scopesi, he exercised the right not to respond.
The lawyer explained that Signorini could speak at a later time when the context is calmer.
Signorini is the only suspect for whom precautionary custody in prison was ordered due to “a current and concrete danger that the suspect may repeat, within the scope of his duties, other similar corrupt conduct by putting his function at the service of private interests in exchange for utility for oneself or others”.
The meeting of the shareholders’ agreement
This morning the Iren Shareholders’ Agreement Committee met, composed of the mayor of Genoa Marco Bucci and colleagues of Turin and Reggio Stefano Lo Russo and Luca Vecchi. The auditors analyzed the situation of the company after the arrest of CEO Signorini and expressed appreciation for the decision of the Board of Directors to redistribute the powers of the CEO to the president and vice president, to guarantee business continuity. “The Committee – we read in a note – once it has acquired the legal opinions as well as all the information necessary to have a clear and defined picture, will implement all the actions and measures necessary to protect the interest of the company and will take the useful decisions for the new governance”.
Vecchi: “Rapidly changing governance”
This morning we gathered the Shareholders’ Agreement coordinated by the undersigned together with the mayors of Genoa and Turin. We appreciated the promptness with which the company revoked the delegations entrusting them to the President and the Vice President and suspended Signorini’s compensation. The serious events are unrelated to Iren and the company is overall healthy with results in line with expectations. But this does not alter the fact that the seriousness of the personal situation concerning the CEO requires us to quickly turn the page in corporate governance, setting Iren’s near future on new foundations. For these reasons we have given a mandate to the legal office to quickly identify coherent and consequent solutions.
Marco Massari, candidate for mayor of Reggio for the centre-left: “Relations must be interrupted immediately between Signorini and Iren”
As a consequence of the arrest of Iren’s CEO Paolo Signorini and given the charges against him, I believe that relations between Signorini and the Iren Group should be immediately interrupted. Naturally, before issuing sentences, justice must take its course but at the same time I think that the company of which the Municipality of Reggio is a shareholder, which has appropriately already redistributed Signorini’s powers, has every right to look forward and work with serenity. In the current state of the findings that have emerged, it appears that the disputed facts have nothing to do with Iren but are attributable to Signorini’s activity as manager of the Port of Genoa. Facts which have highlighted unscrupulous conduct which, regardless of the criminal profiles that will be ascertained by the trials, is contrary to the principles of transparency, honesty and public interest which a subsidiary company such as the multi-utility has the duty to comply with. In general, with respect to the selection of company management – aware of the problems linked in particular to the compensation ceiling – it will probably be necessary to choose with greater attention, putting skills at the center and not excluding internal paths. Great weight will be given to adherence to company values. In our electoral program we have given centrality and space to the issue of legality and in the face of such serious facts, even though they originated entirely in the Genoese context, we must respond firmly.
Paola Soragni, mayoral candidate of the Movement for Reggio Emilia: “Iren, a problem to be solved”
Political evil infests Italy widely, party subjects alternate but relations with business and even organized crime seem to have not lost their systematic nature. If the judiciary – that judiciary, which is certainly not free from problems but whose independence Nordio and others today clearly attack in order to conduct its action under political control as denounced by the upright Gratteri – systematically investigated such relationships everywhere, not excluding our territory, the results would probably be very indicative.
The incarceration of the CEO Signorini, CEO of Iren wanted by Toti but voted for by everyone, including Vecchi, offers the graphic insight into a sick society, whose hypertrophic profits are paid in the bill by the citizens, from which it would be good to free our territory once and for all by restoring, in the ways and times legally possible, a fully public, efficient, transparent and non-profitable management of essential services. A public company whose debts are incurred to support citizens, and not to pay the mega-profits of the administrators! The political caste is far from having become extinct, its protean nature today presents aspects that make us miss the times of the reviled so-called first republic. Some, who proclaimed the fight against that caste, have today become part of it by submitting to the party system that they had verbally opposed. We do not. Let us proudly continue that popular and legal battle, so that not only Reggio but the entire country can finally free itself from this unbearable burden.
The CGIL: “Greater public control is needed on Iren”
“After the judicial earthquake which involved, among others, the president of the Liguria Region Toti and the CEO of Iren Signorini, it is necessary to clarify and draw a zero point on the management model of the shared energy company, starting from the politics”. Thus Luca Chierici of the CGIL Provincial Secretariat regarding the facts emerging from the Ligurian investigation.
“Certainly no one could have predicted what happened, and the presumption of innocence certainly applies to everyone, but the judicial earthquake that involved Signorini is not “neutral” on the stock market performance of the SPA, on the contrary the collapse of the share price also affects public finances and the Mayors, who should control the Company, cannot look the other way, also to avoid being forced to face, in the future, undesirable repercussions on employment. There is a need for greater control by public administrators regarding the profiles selected to manage the investee companies”.
Reggio Emilia arrested Turin Iren Genoa warrant interrogation Paolo Signorini
