Parmalat's US arm files for bankruptcy protection
A United States unit of the Italian dairy group Parmalat at the centre of a multi-billion euro accounting scandal has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in New York.
Parmalat USA has detailed debts of $100m (€79.30m) and said its largest unsecured bank loan was $10.1m (€7.93m).
Farmland Dairies and Milk Products, two other US affiliates of Parmalat, have also filed for bankruptcy protection.
Parmalat collapsed two months ago with heavy losses and investigators have since been focusing on recovering money that it is suspected to have siphoned from the company.
Last week evidence given by the group's chief financial officer Fausto Tonna pointed to losses of €350m-€450m a year from the mid-nineties to 2001.
Former Parmalat executives have previously said that the group overpaid for companies it bought in the US, Latin America and eastern Europe.
