Invesco joins the Parmalat battle

INVESCO is poised to join other British fund managers in a $5bn (£2.7bn) lawsuit over the collapse of Italian dairy group Parmalat.

US legal sources told the Financial Mail on Sunday that Invesco was considering remedies after it allegedly lost money in what the Securities & Exchange Commission has called 'one of the largest financial frauds ever perpetrated'.

Darren Robbins is a lawyer with the US law firm Milberg Weiss, which last week lodged a lawsuit in a New York court on behalf of an Alaskan pension fund. He said: 'There has been a tidal wave of interest in this case. We have had potential clients contact us over losses from as little as $20,000 to more than $100m.'

Italian prosecutors seeking to find out what happened to as much as $8bn continue to interrogate Parmalat officials, including jailed founder, chairman and chief executive Calisto Tanzi.

Invesco would not comment.