ROME: Italy’s top court has overturned an 18-year jail sentence for a Swiss billionaire convicted over his role in the country’s biggest asbestos scandal, saying too much time had passed since the alleged wrongdoing.

Stephan Schmidheiny was found guilty in 2012 of negligence at his company’s Italian factories in the 1970s and 80s, which eventually led to almost 3,000 asbestos-related deaths.

However, in a ruling that stunned relatives of the dead, Italy’s highest court annulled the verdict late on Wednesday, saying the statute of limitations had kicked in.

The decision means that the Swiss businessman will also escape having to pay millions of euros in fines and compensation ordered by Italian courts in 2012 and 2013.

Published in Dawn, November 21st, 2014