1) Parmalat was a large Italian dairy company that collapsed in 2003 under billions of euros in debt due to fraudulent accounting practices. 2) Over many years, Parmalat had been using fake transactions to inflate assets and revenues to hide growing debts from poor investments and acquisitions. 3) When the fraud was revealed in 2003, Parmalat owed $14 billion to investors and banks who were complicit and had ignored signs of deception in exchange for large fees.