MILAN, Feb 11 - A judge in Turin on Wednesday turned down a request from John Elkann to end a tax fraud case through a period of community service, a move that keeps open the possibility of a criminal trial.
Elkann, 49, who leads family holding company Exor as CEO and is chairman of automakers Stellantis and Ferrari, faces tax fraud allegations tied to the inheritance of his grandmother. In September 2025, with backing from Turin prosecutors, he proposed doing one year of community service and, together with siblings Lapo and Ginevra, paying a negotiated sum of 183 million euros to resolve the matter.
The community service proposal had been lodged with a pre-trial judge in Turin. The judge rejected it on Wednesday, which means the case will likely proceed to court.
The judge’s decision did not alter the financial settlement that the Elkann family had already paid. That payment addressed the administrative side of the dispute rather than the penal side, and remains in place.
Responding to the judge’s decision, lawyers Paolo Siniscalchi and Federico Cecconi said in a joint statement: "If the trial goes ahead, we will demonstrate that John Elkann didn’t do anything."
Background to the matter
The allegations are part of a wider, intricate dispute over the estates of Elkann’s grandfather, Gianni Agnelli - the former long-time head of Fiat - who died in 2003, and of Agnelli’s wife, Marella Caracciolo, who died in 2019. In December, a Turin judge ordered prosecutors to seek Elkann’s indictment on two counts of tax fraud, rejecting an earlier prosecution request to drop the charges.
The inheritance conflict has split one of Italy’s better-known industrial families. It involves Elkann’s mother, Margherita Agnelli, who inherited 1.2 billion euros, and three of her eight children, including her eldest son, John.
Separately, Margherita is pursuing a civil case in which she seeks to overturn agreements she signed in 2004. Those agreements concern attempts to ensure that sums inherited from her parents would also be distributed to the five children she had from a second marriage.
Other details
The legal process is ongoing, and the judge’s Wednesday decision specifically affects the request to resolve the penal proceedings through community service rather than disposing of the financial settlement that addressed administrative issues.
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