MILAN (Reuters) – An Italian judge has seized assets worth almost 75 million euros ($84 million) from five people, including Stellantis (NYSE:) and Ferrari (NYSE:) Chair John Elkann, as part of an investigation into alleged tax fraud, prosecutors said on Friday.
The investigation, opened earlier this year, alleges Elkann and his siblings did not pay taxes in Italy on assets they inherited after the death in 2019 of their grandmother Marella Caracciolo, the wife of late Fiat boss Gianni Agnelli.
The case stems from a wider inheritance dispute between the Elkanns and their mother Margherita over the estate of Gianni Agnelli, which has divided one of Italy’s best known business dynasties.
Prosecutors in the northern city of Turin said in a statement that their investigation showed that Caracciolo was a resident in Italy from at least 2010 and not Switzerland, and that her inheritance therefore should have been taxed in Italy.
They said claims she had been based in Switzerland were part of “a criminal plan to hide her substantial assets and related income from Italian inheritance and tax laws”.
Other people targeted by the seizure are Elkann’s siblings Lapo and Ginevra, his accountant Gianluca Ferrero and Swiss notary Urs von Grunigen, who acted as estate executor.
John Elkann, who is also the CEO of the Agnelli family holding company Exor (AS:), and other people involved were not immediately available for comment.
($1 = 0.8957 euros)