CPL Concordia board to resign 'en masse'

(ANSA) - Modena, April 21 - The board of directors of CPL Concordia, Italy's leftwing multi-utility cooperative at the centre of a high-profile corruption probe, is to resign in its entirety to "facilitate the replacement of all its members", the group said in a statement on Tuesday.
    A new board will be appointed at a shareholders' assembly on April 29.
    "The names of authoritative figures from outside the group who will be able to compete for the position of legal representative will also be put forward to the assembly," CPL Concordia said.
    "The new board of directors will be tasked with tackling the priority areas of the cooperative's reorganization and governance," the group added. CPL Concordia is a huge former Communist cooperative founded in Modena in 1899 and employing some 1,800 people, with 70 branches worldwide.
    The group is implicated in a major probe into alleged bribes paid to obtain public contracts on the Bay of Naples island of Ischia in which 10 people were arrested in March including the island's mayor, Giuseppe 'Giosi' Ferrandino.
    Investigation documents allege that CPL Concordia signed two sham conventions worth 330,000 euros with the Ferrandino family hotel, hired the mayor's brother Massimo Ferrandino as a consultant and paid for at least one holiday in Tunisia in exchange for the alleged favours.
    The investigators believe CPL Concordia executives also paid money to members of the Campania mafia, the Camorra, as part of the scam.