Rome: Thirteen top officials from Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena (BMPS), Deutsche Bank and Nomura are to go on trial in Milan for their alleged role in a long-running derivatives scandal, Italian newspapers reported Sunday.


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The accused in the trial due to open December 15 include Giuseppe Mussari, former chairman of the BMPS Foundation, his former chief executive Antonio Vigni, six former employees of Germany`s Deutsche Bank and two of Japan`s Nomura bank.

The alleged crimes, committed between 2008 and 2012 and key to a scandal that has rocked BMPS since 2013, concern false accounting, share manipulation and obstructing regulators from Consob, Italy`s stock exchange watchdog. 

The investigation focuses on derivatives trades called Santorini and Alexandria, conducted with Deutsche Bank and Nomura respectively to hide losses equivalent to two billion euros ($2.2 billion).

The trial comes at a particularly tricky time for the oldest bank in the world -- BMPS was founded in 1472 -- as it is in the process of offloading 9.2 billion euros in non-performing assets and is urgently seeking new capital of up five billion euros.

Deemed a weak link in Italy`s banking system, BMPS came last in EU bank stress tests in July.

Since the start of the year, the bank`s share price has dropped some 76 percent. 

On September 14 it named a new chief executive and announced the resignation of its chairman as part of a major management shake-up.

In 2014, Mussari and Vigni appealed against convictions and jail terms handed down in relation the derivatives affair