MILAN — After two delays earlier this year, the Matteo Marzotto tax trial got under way on Friday, laying the groundwork for the next hearing, scheduled on Jan. 14, which is expected to be pivotal for future developments.
Judge Orsola De Cristofaro is called upon to decide whether Marzotto and his sister Diamante will indeed have to stand trial and whether the arraignment should be moved to a Rome courthouse.
Neither Marzotto nor his sister Diamante, indicted with other defendants for alleged omission of earnings declaration and tax evasion, were present in court on Friday. Matteo Marzotto has in the past declared that he had “always operated in the full respect of the law.” Reached by WWD on Friday, he declined additional comment.
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The allegations involve the Marzotto family’s association with the sale of Valentino Fashion Group to private equity fund Permira in May 2007 for more than 782 million euros, or $976.7 million at current exchange rate.
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Also not present were defendant Bart Zech, administrator of the board of International Capital Growth, a firm the tax police believe to be a fictitious entity based in Luxembourg but managed in Milan, and allegedly created for the purpose of selling 29.9 percent of the Valentino group; real estate entrepreneur Massimo Caputi and Pierre Kladny, president of the board of ICG.
According to the indictment, taxes on the profit derived from the transaction were never paid in Italy.
Marking a possible turning point in fiscal trials, Marzotto’s lawyer Paolo De Capitani, from the studio of one of Italy’s most notable fiscal lawyers, Victor Uckmar, cited the fourth article of the seventh protocol of the European Human Rights Convention [ CEDU]. Accordingly, said De Capitani, a defendant “cannot be tried twice for the same fact, or ne bis in idem,” which is similar to the American “double jeopardy.” De Capitanisaid that, since the Marzotto siblings each paid 1.6 million euros, or $1.9 million, to the fiscal police “to avoid trailing judicial issues” related to the same facts at a fiscal level, they should not be indicted at a penal level. The lawyer made a reference to a similar recent sentence at the highest court level here, the Corte Suprema di Cassazione. If De Cristofaro does comply with this objection, the decision would mark a significant departure from the current status quo as, until now, fiscal trials run parallel but independently of penal ones. Case in point is the acquittal of Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana from charges of tax evasion at the highest court level in October, which may not prevent the designers from having to pay a fiscal fine to the state. Prosecutor Laura Pedio, who also headed up the Dolce and Gabbana Trial at the lower court with Gaetano Ruta, struck a cautious note, contenting that “ne bis in idem is more about insider trading or stock manipulation at the Bourse,” and said that the subjects at the heart of the two trials are different as ICG is targeted fiscally, while the individuals are charged at a penal level. “You cannot sic et simpliciter [as it is and simply] transfer different subjects [from one level to the other],” said Pedio. She also said a “penal judge is not bound to the fiscal agency.”