Puccio Penalisti Associati, with a team composed of Founding Partner Andrea Puccio, Senior Associate Elisa Pigozzi and Associate Giulia Bellini, gets absolution, because the fact does not exist, of the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Metalleghe S.p.A., one of the main players in the steel sector, in the criminal proceedings relating to the crime of unfaithful declaration, contested against the Company for multi-million dollar amounts.
The investigation against the legal representative of Metalleghe S.p.A. had stemmed from a tax assessment carried out by the Guardia di Finanza back in 2016: the Fiamme Gialle had analysed a series of business transactions carried out by the Company between 2010 and 2013, which were considered suspicious.
According to the investigators’ approach, later adopted by the Public Prosecutor’s Office, Metalleghe S.p.A., as the promoter of these triangular transactions between Bosnia, Italy and other EU countries, had unduly classified them as ‘intra-Community sales’, enabling it to obtain the status of habitual exporter, in order to then take advantage, in the purchases of subsequent years, of a VAT ceiling artfully generated, in order to evade taxes, for approximately 60 million euro.
Hence, the indictment of the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Metalleghe S.p.A. for the crime of false declaration pursuant to Article 4 of Legislative Decree 74/2000, in relation to the years from 2011 to 2014.
During the first instance hearing, the defence pointed out the unfoundedness of the accusatory hypothesis, demonstrating how the approach of the Guardia di Finanza was in fact an erroneous interpretation of the tax regime attributable to the commercial transactions carried out by Metalleghe and a distorted reading of the incriminating case in point.
At the outcome of the Public Prosecutor’s indictment and the defence’s argument, the Court of Brescia accepted the defence’s thesis regarding the full legitimacy of the triangulations carried out, acquitting the defendant because the fact did not exist, in relation to all the years subject to indictment.
Eight years after the start of the investigation, the complex judicial case can finally be said to be over.