Legacy

Agnelli, Avvocato's new 1998 will emerges: 'To Edoardo 25% of December'

A twist in the court in Turin at the hearing on the civil lawsuit brought by Margherita Agnelli against John, Lapo and Ginevra Elkann. In 1998 Gianni Agnelli drew up a will assigning Edoardo a share in the company 'Dicembre', this is what Margherita Agenlli's lawyers produced at the hearing today

29 September 2025

Illustrazione di Laura Cattaneo/Il Sole 24 Ore

3' min read

Key points

Elkann branch lawyers: alleged will does not affect succession

3' min read

Twist in the court in Turin. At today's hearing, devoted to the civil suit brought by Margherita Agnelli against John, Lapo, Ginevra Elkann, Margherita's lawyers produced a copy of a new (and unpublished) will of lawyer Gianni Agnelli dated 1998. The text, a few lines long, reads: 'In amendment of other previous provisions, I leave to my son Edoardo my shareholding in the simple company "Dicembre" equal to approximately 25%. I am sure that my other relatives, who each already own a share of the same amount, will accept this disposition of mine without objection'. The Decembre is the Elkann family's company that cascades into the holding company Exor.

Il nuovo testamento

Sarebbe stato scritto dall’avvocato nel 1998

Il nuovo testamento dell’Avvocato, scritto da lui stesso a mano libera nel 1998

Elkann branch lawyers: alleged will does not affect succession

The Elkanns' defence states 'that the alleged will of Gianni Agnelli - containing provisions in favour of his son Edoardo and produced in photostatic copy only today by Margherita in the context of the civil lawsuit - does not affect in any way either the Agnelli succession or the Caracciolo succession and therefore the ownership structure of the company Dicembre'.

"At the time of the Avvocato's death, in fact, Edoardo had already passed away: consequently, the shares in Dicembre owned by Gianni Agnelli were passed on to his wife Marella and daughter Margherita. The management of the Agnelli succession was then defined with the settlement agreement of February 2004, following which Margherita definitively exited from the capital of Dicembre, having at that time considered Fiat a company destined to bankruptcy,' the lawyers explain, adding that 'moreover, more than 20 years having passed since Gianni Agnelli's death, any third-party claim on his assets would in any case be extinguished'.

'Margherita's lawyer's initiative therefore appears more aimed at generating media confusion than at a rigorous legal investigation of the applicable rules,' conclude the Elkann defence lawyers.

Margherita Agnelli's lawyers

The will of Gianni Agnelli shows how the provision by which the lawyer "had destined to his nephew John Elkann his 25% share in Dicembre did not represent his last and definitive will" while "on the contrary, it emerges that the nephew should have been entitled only to a minority shareholding, while that which was attributable to him should have belonged to his son Edoardo, who tragically died in 2000, and, failing that, to his legitimate heirs, namely Margherita Agnelli and Marella Caracciolo". This is what the lawyers Dario Trevisan and Valeria Proli, lawyers of Margherita Agnelli, state.

The alleged new will on the Dicembre of 1998, which was never revoked, nor modified (not even in the context of the subsequent dispositions of 20 April 1999) was, therefore, totally ignored and kept hidden for all these years: this is what Margherita Agnelli's lawyers claimed at the hearing in Turin. This document," Margherita's lawyers stress, "shows how the provision with which Gianni Agnelli had destined his own 25% share of Dicembre to his nephew John Elkann did not represent his last and definitive will. On the contrary, from the handwritten will of the lawyer, produced before the Court, it emerges how the nephew should have been entitled only to a minority shareholding, while that attributable to him should have belonged to his son Edoardo - who tragically died in 2000 - and, failing that, to his legitimate heirs, namely Margherita Agnelli and Marella Caracciolo.

The document was allegedly found during the investigations launched by the Turin Public Prosecutor's Office against, among others, John Elkann and Gianluigi Ferrero. And for Margherita's defenders, it constitutes a further element capable of bringing about a radical revision of the ownership structure of December and, on a moral level, it represents proof that the Avvocato's last wishes were disregarded and betrayed.