No hidden inheritance”: Elkann brothers’ lawyers deny allegations of secret wealth

The legal representatives of the Elkann brothers, John, Lapo, and Lavinia, have responded to the press articles that speak of a ‘secret treasure’ of hundreds of millions of euros transferred to a Luxembourg sub-fund by the heirs of lawyer Gianni Agnelli, a fund whose shares were declared to the Italian tax authorities in 2023 during inheritance checks. “There has never existed and there is no hidden inheritance of the Agnelli family,” the lawyers state, “in the face of a sequence of repeated falsehoods that are filling the media these days.” They reaffirm that “the Elkann brothers, appointed universal heirs by their grandmother, have fulfilled all the administrative and tax obligations that fall on individuals inheriting from foreign residents, as was undeniably the case with Marella Caracciolo.” Furthermore, “it is not true that supplementary tax declarations have been filed revealing previously unknown assets to the Italian tax authorities.” The lawyers also add that “the jewels that are being talked about excessively were certainly assets owned by Marella Caracciolo, who disposed of them in life as she wished.” Finally, they emphasize that “John Elkann holds the role assigned to him by his grandfather, following a succession pattern that has always been recurrent in the Agnelli family, ensuring the first Italian industrial group a development and a management continuity that has reached the milestone of 125 years.”