MILAN (Reuters.) -The proceedings involving Italian bank Unicredit, (MI:), over alleged fraudulent sales of diamonds will begin again, judicial sources have said. This increases the chance that many of these allegations may be dropped because they are too time sensitive.

A company lawyer said to Reuters that an Italian judge decided to refer the case involving Italy’s 2nd largest bank and 7 of its employees to Trieste.

It is alleged that unwitting clients were sold diamonds by banks and brokers at exorbitant prices, while being promoted as financial investments.

All of the involved banks had already paid most clients.

This decision is based upon the fact that Unicredit’s alleged offenses occurred in different locations. Therefore, proceedings regarding Unicredit will be restarted.

Giuseppe Iannaccone, Unicredit’s lawyer said that he was satisfied with the decision to grant his request for a transfer.

He stated, “But I believe the allegation is baseless and regret that the Bank and its employees will need to wait more to prove they are innocent.”

According to judicial and legal sources, Judge Manuela Scudieri also ordered Friday that 15 diamond brokers IDB and other people be tried at the end June.

The lawyer representing IDB (which collapsed in 2019) was unavailable for comment immediately.

After a July 2021 closed-door hearing, the judge accepted also the Banco BPM settlement and Banca Aletti’s subsidiary Banca Aletti.

Banco BPM proposed paying 240,000 euros ($260856) to be settled. It will also have another 293,119 Euros confiscated. Banca Aletti, on the other hand, would offer 56,000 euros as settlement.

Intesa Sanpaolo was settled by the OTC on July 1. The case against Monte dei Pachi is already being transferred to the Siena Court, where it has its headquarters.

Many fraud accusations that are to be investigated could end up being dropped because these types of offenses can only be brought to an end after seven years. According to Italian law, this is a time-barred offense.

The indictment requests by the prosecutors state that five banks and two broker, including one which resolved the case last year were accused of making inflated profits totaling around 500,000,000 euros between 2014 and 2016. This left savers with nothing.

Customers were able to get the diamonds back at their original selling prices from MPS, UniCredit, and Intesa. Banco then reimbursed any difference in the fair market price paid by clients for the diamonds.

($1 = 0.9200 euros)