By Emilio Parodi MILAN (Reuters) - Stellantis and Ferrari Chairman John Elkann has agreed to do a year of community service and pay a negotiated sum to settle a tax dispute over the inheritance of his
John Elkann to Complete Community Service in Tax Fraud Settlement
Overview of Elkann's Tax Fraud Case
By Emilio Parodi
Settlement Details
MILAN (Reuters) - Stellantis and Ferrari Chairman John Elkann has agreed to do a year of community service and pay a negotiated sum to settle a tax dispute over the inheritance from his grandmother, Italian prosecutors said on Monday.
Family Inheritance Dispute
Elkann and his siblings Lapo and Ginevra will jointly pay 183 million euros ($215 million) to the Italian tax authorities related to the estate of their grandmother Marella Caracciolo who died in 2019, prosecutors in the northern city of Turin said.
Impact on Margherita Agnelli
Elkann also agreed to undertake a year of community service, thus ending a criminal investigation against him for alleged tax fraud in relation to the inheritance.
Ongoing Civil Proceedings
Prosecutors said they had given their approval to the agreement, which must now be ratified by a judge. In Italy, such a bargain does not imply an admission of guilt.
The prosecutors asked the judge to drop the criminal case against Elkann's siblings Lapo and Ginevra.
Paolo Siniscalchi, their lawyer, stressed there was no admission of liability on the part of the Ferrari chairman.
"The prosecutors' decisions are an opportunity to bring this painful affair to a swift and definitive conclusion," he added in a statement.
The payment of the 183 million euros closes all investigations into evasion of taxes on an estate estimated by the Italian authorities to be worth around 800 million euros.
Elkann will now have to propose to the judicial authorities an institution where he can do his community service.
This could be a centre for the elderly, an association that helps drug addicts, or some other institution with a similar social-support function.
FAMILY DIVIDED
The case stems from a wider inheritance dispute between the Elkanns and their mother Margherita over the estate of Gianni Agnelli, the celebrated former Fiat boss, which has divided one of Italy's best known business dynasties.
Gianni, a symbol of Italy's post-war economic boom, died two decades ago.
As part of this case, a judge in Turin last year seized money and assets worth almost 75 million euros from five people, including John, Lapo and Ginevra Elkann.
In addition to the tax and criminal proceedings, a civil case concerning the inheritance dispute is also ongoing.
It pits Gianni's daughter Margherita, who inherited 1.2 billion euros, against three of her eight children including her eldest, John Elkann.
Margherita is fighting to overturn agreements she signed in 2004 after her father's death, in an attempt to ensure that money goes to her five children from a second marriage.
Margherita Agnelli's lawyers said in a statement that they welcomed the outcome of these tax and criminal proceedings, adding that they would have consequences for her claim.
"The judges in the civil proceedings in Turin have today obtained further unequivocal confirmation of the plan devised and implemented to the detriment of Margherita Agnelli," they said.($1 = 0.8512 euros)
(Reporting by Emilio Parodi, editing by Gavin Jones and Keith Weir)
