MILAN (Reuters) - Milan prosecutors will need to submit a new request that Japanese bank Nomura (T:8604) be sent to trial in Italy over a 2009 derivative trade with Italian lender Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MI:BMPS), legal sources said on Friday.
Prosecutors asked in April for Monte dei Paschi and Nomura, as well as former executives at both banks, to be sent to trial for alleged market manipulation and false accounting.
Prosecutors allege that the so-called Alexandria trade, which Monte dei Paschi and Nomura have agreed to close early, helped the Tuscan bank conceal losses after its costly acquisition of a smaller rival in 2008.
But a mistake in the way Nomura was notified that the investigation was concluded means that the judge cannot rule on whether to send the Japanese bank to trial, the sources said.
Prosecutors will need to send a new notification to Nomura, which has always denied any wrongdoing, and file a new request with a judge.
Under Italy's slow legal system, it could take up to a year before a decision is reached and this means prosecutors could run out of time for an appeal under the statute of limitations.
Monte dei Paschi announced in September it had reached a deal with Nomura for the early termination of the Alexandria trade, which had been bleeding money at the Tuscan bank.