Friday 29th November is a crucial day for the Agnelli family. As he writes MfIn fact, John Elkann with the brothers Lapo e Geneva will face each other in the city of Geneva – for the first time before Swiss judges – against their mother Margherita Agnelli of Pahlen in the case on the validity of the succession agreement and settlement agreement, both signed in 2004 between mother and grandmother, Marella Caracciolo. Under those Swiss law agreements, Margaret renounced theinheritance of the father and the future of the mother in exchange for 1,3 billion euros between cash, real estate and works of art. Agreements later contested several times and on several fronts, in Italy and Switzerland.
John Elkann's words, therefore, will be extremely important in tipping the judges' decision one way or the other.
Agnelli inheritance: PM eyes on family safe December
In the meantime, the investigators are targeting the "December“, that is, the Agnelli family's safe which, through Exor, controls the majority of companies such as Stellantis, Classic Ferrari for sale e Juventus. Dicembre, in fact, formally enters the investigation that the Turin prosecutor's office is conducting around the streams of the Avvocato's inheritance. The financial police of the economic-tax police unit of the Piedmontese capital, with the authorization of a judge, have carried out a series of searches in recent days. And there is also a new suspect: the Turin notary Remo Morone.
The public prosecutors, therefore, have formulated a hypothesis of a crime of false ideological regarding the “declaration relating to the composition and structure of December” filed with the Companies Registry Office on 30 June 2021. The company is in the hands of the brothers John (60%), Lapo and Ginevra Elkann, Gianni Agnelli's grandchildren. But it was their mother, Margherita Agnelli, who reported some anomalies. For example, his is the complaint that triggered the investigation by the Subalpine prosecutor's office at the end of 2022. This new line of investigation is attempting to shed light on a series of circumstances. In 2004, Agnelli's wife, Marella Caracciolo, ceded the bare ownership of the shares to her grandchildren, maintaining the right of usufruct. However, investigators were struck by a series of aspects, starting with the absence of payment of the price of the shares and a series of anomalies in the documents: the originals are missing and those recovered appear incomplete or even altered.
Agnelli legacy, the Elkann's reply
The Elkanns' lawyers, who were not involved in the searches, affirm that "the actions of Dicembre are all legitimate" and that "the current structure of the company, as well as the role played by John Elkann, reflect the wishes of Gianni and Marella Agnelli, are supported by the entire family and cannot be modified by any legal action".
But the investigators are not interested in modifying the December structure: the investigations concern tax profiles related to inheritance and gift taxes. For now, on a theoretical level, the estimate is around 80 million.
