Emilio Gnutti is an Italian

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 financier

Financier

Financier is a term for a person who handles typically large sums of money, usually involving money lending, financing projects, large-scale investing, or large-scale money management. The term is French, and derives from finance or payment...

 and founder of the Hopa SpA holding company

Holding company

A holding company is a company or firm that owns other companies' outstanding stock. It usually refers to a company which does not produce goods or services itself; rather, its purpose is to own shares of other companies. Holding companies allow the reduction of risk for the owners and can allow...

. He was involved in many important takeover

Takeover

In business, a takeover is the purchase of one company by another . In the UK, the term refers to the acquisition of a public company whose shares are listed on a stock exchange, in contrast to the acquisition of a private company.- Friendly takeovers :Before a bidder makes an offer for another...

s, most notably the one of Telecom Italia

Telecom Italia

Telecom Italia is the largest Italian telecommunications company, also active in the media and manufacturing industries. Now a private concern listed on the Borsa Italiana, it was founded in 1994 by the merger of several state-owned telecommunications companies, the most important of which was...

 made in 1999 with Roberto Colaninno, and the subsequent sale of the company to Marco Tronchetti Provera

Marco Tronchetti Provera

Marco Tronchetti Provera was born in Milan in 1948 and obtained a Degree in Economics and Business Administration from the Bocconi University of Milan in 1971...

. On October 25, 2006 he was sentenced to six months in jail for insider trading

Insider trading

Insider trading is the trading of a corporation's stock or other securities by individuals with potential access to non-public information about the company...

 in the Unipol

Unipol

Unipol Gruppo Finanziario S.p.A. is an Italian financial services company operating principally in the insurance sector, in which it is the country's fourth-largest firm. Based in Bologna, the company was founded in 1962 as a cooperative provider of non-life insurance...

 (bancopoli

Bancopoli

Bancopoli was the name coined by the Italian press to identify the finance and banking scandals that played out for the Italian public between July 2005 and January 2006...

) case, together with Giovanni Consorte

Giovanni Consorte

Giovanni Consorte is an Italian manager. He graduated in chemical engineering at the University of Bologna in 1972 and headed Montedison from 1973 to 1975, then Lega delle Cooperative from 1976 to 1978. Since 1979 he worked in Unipol, of which he became President in 1996. He resigned on December...

 and Ivano Sacchetti

Ivano Sacchetti

Ivano Sacchetti is an Italian manager. He was the Vice-President of Unipol until December 31, 2005, when he resigned following the bancopoli scandal. On October 25, 2006 he was sentenced to six months in jail for insider trading, together with Giovanni Consorte and Emilio Gnutti...

. He appealed, but then he decided to accept a plea bargain

Plea bargain

A plea bargain is an agreement in a criminal case whereby the prosecutor offers the defendant the opportunity to plead guilty, usually to a lesser charge or to the original criminal charge with a recommendation of a lighter than the maximum sentence.A plea bargain allows criminal defendants to...

 and on November 12, 2007 the Milan

Milan

Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...

 Court of Appeal converted the sentence into a fine.