Italian judge rules Agnelli scion Elkann can't close tax fraud case with community service

MILAN, Feb 11 (Reuters) - An Italian judge on Wednesday rejected a request from John Elkann, scion of the Agnelli family and chairman of automakers Stellantis STLAM.MI and Ferrari RACE.MI, to settle a tax fraud case by doing a period of community service.

Elkann, 49, is the CEO of family holding company Exor EXOR.AS and the tax fraud allegations regard the inheritance of his grandmother.

In September 2025, with the backing of Turin prosecutors, he proposed to do one year of community service and, along with siblings Lapo and Ginevra, to pay a negotiated sum of 183 million euros ($218 million) to close the case.

The community service proposal was submitted to a pre-trial judge in Turin, who rejected it on Wednesday, meaning the case will probably go to court.

The judge's rejection did not affect the financial settlement, with the Elkanns having already paid to close the administrative, rather than the penal side of the dispute.

If the trial goes ahead, "we will demonstrate that John Elkann didn't do anything," lawyers Paolo Siniscalchi and Federico Cecconi said in a joint statement.

Elkann is embroiled in a complicated dispute over the estate of his grandfather, Gianni Agnelli, the celebrated former Fiat boss who died in 2003, and of Agnelli's late wife Marella Caracciolo, who passed away in 2019.

In December, a Turin judge ordered prosecutors to seek Elkann's indictment on two counts of tax fraud, dismissing a prosecution request for charges to be dropped.

The inheritance battle, which has divided one of Italy's best known business dynasties, pits Elkann's mother Margherita Agnelli, who inherited 1.2 billion euros, against three of her eight children including her eldest, John.

In an ongoing civil case, Margherita is fighting to overturn agreements she signed in 2004 in an attempt to ensure that money inherited from her parents also goes to the five children she had from a second marriage.

($1 = 0.8403 euros)