Agnelli inheritance, John Elkann towards community service

Three requests for archiving and a favourable opinion for a trial. The Turin Public Prosecutor's Office has closed its investigation into the tax offences contested as part of the inheritance of Marella Agnelli - Gianni Agnelli's widow, who died in 2019 -, asking for Lapo and Ginevra Elkann and Urs Robert Von Grunigen, Marella Caracciolo's notary, to be archived, leaving open a dispute against her brother John. At the same time, the chairman of Stellantis and Ferrari asked to be put on probation - with the favourable opinion of the Turin Public Prosecutor's Office - in order to obtain the suspension of the criminal proceedings, on which the Gip will now have to express an opinion.

The Elkann brothers, as part of the agreement with the public prosecutor's office, will jointly pay €183 million to the tax authorities to neutralise the charges of disloyal declaration and fraud to the detriment of the State. The public prosecutor's office also made a request for John Elkann to be partially dismissed, only for the offence of false declaration and limited to two years. The chairman of Stellantis reached an agreement with the public prosecutor's office to put him on probation for one year at the social services, in order to suspend proceedings for alleged tax fraud, again in relation to his grandmother's inheritance. The institution of probation, introduced into our legal system in 2014, in the event of a positive final outcome, entailsthe extinction of the contested offences.

Paolo Siniscalchi, lawyer of the Elkann brothers, underlined in the margin of the Public Prosecutor's Office press release that "the determinations of the public prosecutors, also in the light of the overall definition with the Agenzia delle Entrate of the possible controversies concerning the tax charges potentially weighing on the brothers as heirs of Donna Marella Agnelli, open the possibility to conclude a painful affair quickly and definitively, avoiding further consequences on a personal and family level. John Elkann's request to be put on probation falls within this framework and does not entail, like the settlement with the tax authorities, any admission of liability'.

The Public Prosecutor's Office requested partial archiving not only for John Elkann, but also for Gianluca Ferrero, the family's accountant and current president of Juventus, for whom it also expressed a favourable opinion on the request for application of the sentence. The Turin notary Remo Maria Morone, on the other hand, was notified of the notice of conclusion of investigations, in relation to which the professional now has the opportunity to produce defensive arguments in order to avoid committal for trial.

On the contrary, for the lawyers of Margherita Agnelli (who had filed the complaint against unknown persons from which the criminal proceedings originated), the request for probation is a confirmation of John Elkann's unlawful conduct. 'There is an unequivocal admission of responsibility and acquiescence,' argues lawyer Dario Trevisan, 'with respect to the contested facts, evidently in the awareness of John Elkann and Gianluca Ferrero that the conditions for obtaining an acquittal were not met.