"Ferrari boss vs. his mother in Agnelli's inheritance drama"

A court in Turin will hear the latest dispute over Agnelli's condition. Margherita Agnelli is confronting her eldest children. Margherita is disputing her inheritance of 1.2 billion euros.

A court in Turin is due to rule in the coming weeks on an inheritance dispute that has divided the Agnelli family, founders of the Fiat car company and perhaps the most famous among Italy's business dynasties.

The case involves the estate of Gianni Agnelli, the illustrious CEO of Fiat, who was a symbol of Italy's economic rise after World War II and died twenty years ago.

Margherita, Agnelli's daughter, inherited 1.2 billion euros and now rivals three of her eight children, including the eldest, John Elkann, chairman of Ferrari and carmaker Stellantis.

In a dispute that has divided one of Italy's elite families, Margherita is fighting to overturn agreements she signed after her father's death to ultimately benefit her five children from her second marriage. If the court in Turin rules in her favor, Margherita, who is 67 and the only surviving child of Gianni Agnelli, will be able to claim half of her late mother's inheritance and a stake in the Elkann family business.

The dispute stems from an inheritance agreement known as the "Geneva Pacts" that Margherita, an artist and philanthropist, signed in 2004 after her father's death and negotiated when Fiat was on the verge of bankruptcy.

The second pact decided the legacy of Marguerite Marella's mother, who died only in 2019 at the age of 91. Marella passed her share in Dicembre to her three grandchildren - John, his brother Lapo and sister Ginevra, from Marguerite's first marriage to journalist Alain Elkann. Marguerite wants to annul the pacts in order to divide the inheritance of his second wife Serge De Palen, a former Fiat executive, between his children, close to sources.

Marguerite also claims that undeclared property was discovered after her father's death and she is entitled to a share in that, as well as other family members.

Italian judges have the option of suspending the ruling pending a Swiss court's decision in a parallel case on the legality of the Geneva Pacts. The verdict is due before the summer recess, but that may not mean the end of this story that led to the breakup of Margarita's relationship with her first three children.