• Investigation of lab coats in Lombardy, Fontana's brother-in-law investigated

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10 July 2020 The acquisitions of the yellow flames in the offices of the company Aria, the regional purchasing center and also in the headquarters of the Lombardy Region are still ongoing, after 2 days, as part of the investigation by the Milan prosecutor's office on the purchase of gowns from the Dama Spa, the company owned by the brother-in-law of Governor Attilio Fontana. The men of the currency nucleus of the Guardia di Finanza have been looking for documents on the affair since last Wednesday and have not yet finished inspecting papers, archived files and above all a full-bodied email documentation.

The DG resigns
Just this afternoon, while the financiers together with the consultants of Price Waterhouse Coopers appointed by the prosecutor, were still in Aria's offices, the director Filippo Bongiovanni, who is under investigation, asked to leave the assignment to be assigned to a new destination. According to what emerges from the investigations, during the emergency, Dama had not signed the integrity pact that in article 3 plans to declare that they are not in conflict of interest if you want to access a supply for a public contracting station. Not to present it, however, was not only the company of Andrea Dini, Fontana's brother-in-law (and in which his wife of the Lombard governor has a 10% share), but also other companies that provided lab coats and personal protective equipment to the Region in the blackest period of the emergency.

The role of Aria spa
The investigators, however, would be convinced that Bongiovanni knew of the conflict of interest and that despite this the purchase of the gowns started the same. Only later - the prosecutors speculate - was the supply transformed into a donation, upon "interest" by the governor himself. Aria, an in-house company owned by the Region, and with its own autonomy with respect to the body, at the time of the pandemic would also have transformed its usual role as "preparer" of the tender procedures for the regional and actual central bodies of commission, given the need to find materials on the market. So, while before it only took care of the choice of contractors, given the emergency, it then went on to play an executive role in regional public purchases.

According to the information collected, Dama SpA should have produced about 5,000 gowns per day, to fulfill the commitment made with the Lombardy Region. In this way, in fact, it would have "saturated" its production capacity with "third category" gowns and safety devices, ie intended for doctors and nurses in hospitals. A production that would have allowed it to continue to keep factories open even during the lockdown, that is, in a moment of absolute decline in sales. The industrial circuit would have been entirely used in overalls and proof is that the "contract" entered into with the region would have been "exclusive". One of the reasons why magistrates believe it was clear from the start that it was not a donation.