The acting general counsel of Parmalat, Bruno Cova, is to leave the company in the summer to return to private practice, with Los Angeles leader Paul Hastings Janofsky & Walker emerging as a potential home.

Cova is one of Italy’s most high-profile in-house lawyers having served as general counsel to Fiat before taking up the post of consultant to Parmalat commissioner Enrico Bondi and acting as the troubled Italian company’s general counsel.