‘Italy’s Kennedys’ battle over automobile large Fiat’s billions

A vicious battle between rival members of Italy‘s most well-known industrial dynasty has stepped up, as a senior member is below investigation following allegations of tax evasion made by his personal mom. 

Members of the Agnelli household, who’ve been likened to the Kennedys, have been bitterly preventing over property bequeathed to them by former patriarch Gianni Agnelli, the richest man in trendy Italian historical past, who died in 2003 on the age of 81

Agnelli, whose funeral was supposedly attended by 100,000, appointed his grandson John Elkann, the eldest son of his mom, Margherita Agnelli, as his successor. 

Shortly after her father, who turned Fiat right into a nationwide powerhouse, at one level commanding 4.4% of Italy’s GDP, handed away, Margherita agreed to surrender her stake within the empire in alternate for €1.2 billion. 

But she modified her thoughts, and has been viciously attempting to claw again the property she signed away, that are at present understood to be price about €4.8 billion. 

Agnelli, who was 81 when he died, appointed his grandson John Elkann (pictured) as his successor.

Shortly after her father’s dying, Margherita Agnelli (pictured) agreed to surrender her stake within the empire in alternate for €1.2 billion

The Agnelli household – Adults from left to proper: Marella Caracciolo, Gianni Agnelli, Eduardo Agnelli and Margherita Agnelli

The newest in a protracted sequence of swipes she has taken at her son, who controls firms together with Ferrari, has seen her accuse him of aiding her personal mom, Marella Caracciolo, the widow of Gianni Agnelli, of committing tax evasion. 

In 2004, Marella gave John and his two siblings management of Dicembre, the household agency that has controlling stakes in a lot of the automotive empire they now management. 

But following her dying in 2019, circumstances relating to the management of the empire started piling up. 

Margherita accused her mom, who was an official resident of Switzerland on the time, and subsequently dealt with change answerable for property below Swiss regulation, of dwelling in Italy within the years earlier than her dying. 

Her attorneys claimed that this could make the bequest unlawful below Italian regulation.  

Gigi Moncalvo, an writer who has written in regards to the household, informed the Times: ‘Margherita has known as her mom’s drivers and workers as witnesses to show she was in Italy, stating she was affected by Parkinson’s illness and Alzheimer’s within the final two years of her life and by no means left Turin.’

‘If she will show that, the bequest is perhaps overruled, giving her a stab at acquiring half of the property her mom left, that are price about €4.8 billion, together with the stakes in Dicembre. 

The Agnelli household have been concerned in a bitter feud since Gianni’s dying 

Italian magistrates are investigating John Elkann on suspicion of aiding his grandmother’s alleged tax evasion

‘That would give her management over the corporate.’

‘There are additionally the gold ingots stashed in Switzerland that the Agnellis have been paid by the Italian authorities for supplying armaments and automobiles in the course of the two world wars,’ he added. 

Italian magistrates have been wanting into whether or not Marella prevented paying taxes in Italy by claiming to be a Swiss resident, and are investigating John Elkann on suspicion of aiding her alleged crimes.

The mom and son, who’re believed to not have spoken to one another since 2004, are additionally preventing over the destiny of the household’s artwork assortment, which incorporates items by Picasso, Monet and Francis Bacon. 

Lawyers representing Agnelli, who went on to have 5 extra youngsters along with her second husband, stated she was merely ‘attempting to make sure honest therapy for all her youngsters, in accordance with the regulation.’

Elkann’s attorneys, in the meantime, stated they’d proceed to battle Margherita in court docket: ‘There is a mom, Margherita Agnelli, who has been persecuting her personal mother and father and three of her youngsters in court docket for 20 years.’

They added she was ‘ignoring the clearly acknowledged needs of Gianni Agnelli and Marella Caracciolo, in addition to the accords she herself signed as much as’.

Fiat honorary chairman Gianni Agnelli, the fashionable Italian industrialist who remodeled Fiat into a world powerhouse

The Agnelli household is not the one Italian automotive dynasty at battle with itself. 

Earlier this month, it was revealed {that a}n Italian beautician employed a non-public detective to gather the saliva from a straw utilized by an heiress to the Lamborghini fortune to battle a bitter defamation battle in Italy.

Flavia Borzone, 35, is being sued by the son of the founding father of the legendary hyper-car producer for defamation, after she publicly claimed he slept along with her mom and was her actual father.

Borzone, a beautician from Naples, says Tonino Lamborghini, the son of Ferrucio Lamborghini, met her mom, Neapolitan opera singer Rosalba Colosimo, within the late Nineteen Eighties when she was 17.

Borzone stated Lamborghini stopped and supplied a trip to Colosimo as she waited for a bus in Milan.

The pair allegedly struck up a relationship, and in 1988 Borzone was born.

But after going public along with her claims in 2019 on TV programmes and gossip magazines, she has confronted an uphill battle to show that she is in truth associated to the Lamborghini household.