Policy

Towards legal action by Grillo to regain possession of the M5s symbol and name. The Five Stars: 'Unfounded prerogatives'

Grillo considers legal action to recover control of the symbol and name of the 5 Star Movement

3 June 2025

2' min read

Key points

Borrè: aim to inhibit use by Conte
M5s: Grillo's prerogatives are unfounded

2' min read

Beppe Grillo 'will soon take legal action to regain possession of the M5s symbol and name'.

This was confirmed by sources close to Grillo - as first reported by the 9colonne.it agency at 16.18 today followed by the others - whose role as guarantor within the Movement was eliminated at the end of 2024, with the M5s Constituent Assembly.

Currently, therefore, Grillo is not in fact part of the M5s led by Giuseppe Conte. 'Seeing this symbol represented by these people gives me a sense of unease,' was Grillo's comment at the outcome of the Constituent Assembly, 'Get yourself another symbol. The Movement is very dead, but the humus within it is not'.

Among the choices contested by Grillo was the abolition of the two-term limit.

According to reports, Beppe Grillo's legal action will not only concern the M5S symbol but also the MoVimento's name.

Borrè: aim to inhibit use by Conte

The legal action that Beppe Grillo intends to take to regain possession of the name and symbol of the 5 Star Movement 'concerns not so much trademark issues, but the ownership of the right to use the party name and emblem, already the subject of an assessment by the Court of Appeal of Genoa in 2021, in which it was explained that the name and symbol of the Pentastellati are Grillo's'.

Lorenzo Borrè, the long-standing lawyer of the Pentastellati dissidents, told Adnkronos.

'The legal action,' the lawyer, who has not been instructed by the former guarantor and co-founder of the M5s, goes on to explain, 'should lead to the inhibition of the use of the name and symbol by Giuseppe Conte and the party of which he is president.

On the merits, he adds, 'there are three different, albeit homonymous, associations, but the Court of Appeal of Genoa, at the outcome of an action brought by the original curator of the symbol, declared that Grillo is the sole owner of the right to use the mark and the name Movimento 5 stelle'.

M5s: Grillo's prerogatives are unfounded

'Absolutely calm'. This is how they reply from M5s headquarters to those who ask about the reaction of the top leadership after the news about Grillo's legal initiative. 'If and when there is this new legal initiative we will read the papers and our lawyers will respond in kind,' M5s sources explained. The claims made on the basis of the symbol are judged to be 'unfounded'. The same sources also explain that, since the new course began, there have been no judicial defeats and on those pending those who have advanced them have lost and been forced to pay court costs and damages. This, they explain, is indicative of the 'solidity' of the judicial arguments of President Giuseppe Conte and the M5S.