Bank of Valletta seeks €50m out-of-court settlement with out-of-pocket Deiulemar bondholders

Malta’s Bank of Valletta has offered a €50m ($59m) out-of-court settlement to Italian bondholders of defunct Deiulemar, in return to drop a long-standing claim against the bank for €363m.

The offer also comes two years after the bank appealed an Italian court’s order for a precautionary warrant that requested it to keep €363m as a provision for damages requested by bondholders.

Deiulemar was a high profile Italian shipping bankruptcy eight years ago, which involved huge fraud and jail sentences for a number of the members of the founding families of the line. The Maltese bank at the time of the bankruptcy held a trust with €363m of Deiulemar assets.