Eredità Agnelli, the Review Court: “Tax not paid, the Elkann brothers knew”
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From the December papers to the documents taken from the trusts, «each sheet of each folder, box, archive, can contain essential data to reconstruct the incomes (or assets) of the suspects and Marella Caracciolo, useful for verifying the complaint”. They are justified seizures for the investigation on theAgnelli legacy. Because, according to the judges of the Review Court, there are enough clues “for all the alleged crimes” in the prosecutor’s provision which can be considered “new” from a “graphic, historical and content” point of view.
The new element was the accusation of fraud against the State, extended not only to John Elkannbut also to the brothers Lapo And Genevaas well as the accountant Gianluca Ferrero and to the Swiss notary Urs Von Gruenigen. For the judges, that crime, contested for not having paid the inheritance tax of a legacy from 734 million of euros that they would have received from their grandmother Marella through off shore funds, «it was likely the object of malicious intent on the part of all the Elkann brothers, who were seen to have excellent relations with their grandmother and as they knew her habits and health problems which made his stay in Italy prevails”.
The reference is to the hypothesis, the cornerstone of the investigation, that the widow’s residence of the Lawyer in Switzerland was fictitious. “Faced with the death of the relative, it is likely that they endorsed, with malicious intent, the strategies already suggested and implemented with the active consultancy of Ferrero”, the judges write. Ginevra and Lapo «would have limited themselves to one moral contest strengthening towards the path already paved by their brother also for their benefit”.
The Court underlines how “only in 2023, almost 4 years after her death” they “rushed to declare the resources already confiscated by her grandmother, even before a succession was opened”. The defense, in addition to denying any accusation, had underlined that the taxes due had been regularly paid.
The judges explain why, in checking the reasons linked to the evidentiary needs in a “little more than embryonic” phase of the investigation, they rejected the requests of the lawyers of Elkann and Ferrero who contested the repetition of the measure, the lack of relevance and proportionality, and the incompatibility of the crime of fraud to the detriment of the State “with any hypothesis of tax crime” being at most an administrative offence.
The Court does not think so, according to which “the defects” of the first decree are to be considered “remedied”: the prosecutors Giulia Marchetti, Mario Bendoni and the adjunct Marco Gianoglio have «better explained the reasons for expanding the investigation onto a broader hypothesis of Irpef evasion» linked no longer only to the life annuity that Marella received from her daughter, but also to other income items with the «natural implications that this extension may have on the subsequent inheritance issue». And therefore it was “necessary” that the field of investigation extended to the brothersand no longer just to John, also for reasons of guarantee in their interest (having emerged that they were the nephews and preferential heirs of Gianni Agnelli and then of Marella).
For the judges, fraud has a “more complex” structure than administrative offences. The State would have been “deceived and kept in the dark about every prerequisite of its legitimate claim to activate the opening of the succession in its territory and collect the tax in the interest of the entire community”.
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