Milan, 26 June 2024 – It is one of the symbolic companies in Italy for food and wine. The investigation opened by the Milan prosecutor’s office is making noise an alleged huge tax evasion attributed to one of the companies of Campari groupproducer of the historic aperitif with the unmistakable red color.
The spark of the file are the investigations carried out by the military economic and financial police unit of the Financial Police. The alleged tax evasion that would be contested against the Luxembourg holding Lagfin, a link in the long chain of Campari companies, is around one billion euroson a tax base of approximately 5 billion.
The file, in which it is hypothesized failure to declare income and failure to pay taxes and with an alleged “hidden stable organisation” at its centre, is coordinated by prosecutors Enrico Pavone and Bianca Baj Macario and conducted by the Financial Police in collaboration with the Revenue Agency.
The Campari group is based in Sesto San Giovanni. It recently announced plans to move to the center of Milan, in a recently purchased building at number 2 of Corso Europa. The move is scheduled for 2027.
The report to the Revenue Agency by the Guardia di Finanza was sent a week ago, following a tax audit on Lagfin Italian Branch, the Italian branch of the Luxembourg holding company of the Campari group. At the momentbetween legal representatives and managers, there are two suspects.
From what has been learned, at the heart of the affair, which is similar to the Exor case (it paid over 700 million to the tax authorities), there would be a question of a failure to pay the so-called “exit tax” linked to a cross-border merger between Alicros, the previous holding company of the group founded in 1860, and Luxembourg-based Lagfin – which controls 51.3% of the shares and 38.8% of the voting rights of the Dutch Davide Campari Milano NV – which was, among other things, joined by the Italian branch, based in the Lombardy capital, to maintain a “stable organisation” in our country.
In this financial scheme, the complaint, on which investigations are underway, is ultimately that of not having paid the accounts with the tax authorities.
The new investigation, entrusted to prosecutors Enrico Pavone and Bianca Maria Baj Macario, is still in its initial stages, as is the tax proceeding born from an inspection activity of the Milanese Fiamme Gialle began in 2019.
The years at the center of the protests, rejected by the group that owns the most important aperitif brandsincluding Bitter, Aperol and Crodino, are those between 2018 and 2020. With the transmission of the “report of findings” to Rome, the lawyers of the Garavoglia family company will have 60 days for their counter-arguments and then disputes will be triggered with investigation.
It will run in parallel with the tax front the criminal profile which, obviously, as has already happened in many similar cases, will take into accountHowever, of a possible transaction with the treasury.
