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The Prosecutor’s Office papers that trouble Juventus: more than 200 million losses hidden

1 year ago babelfish

The Prosecutor's Office papers that trouble Juventus: more than 200 million losses hidden

From false accounting to false communications, through insider trading and obstacle to the supervision of Consob: all the crimes for which Andrea Agnelli, Pavel Nedved and the former managers of Juventus are under investigation

The preliminary hearing of the Prisma trial will be held in Turin on 27 March , which sees Juventus end up in the bar of the accused. The former Juventus president Andrea Agnelli , shared with the sports managers Fabio Paratici and Pavel Nedved and the administrative managers Marco Re, Stefano Bertola, Stefano Cerrato and Cesare Gabasio, are charged with eleven criminal offenses, with serious penalties provided for by the penal code.

THE OFFENSES FOR WHICH AGNELLI, PARATICI, NEDVED AND RE ARE ACCUSED

As Paolo Ziliani writes in a detailed review on Twitter, Andrea Agnelli, Fabio Paratici, Pavel Nedved and Marco Re are accused of numerous offenses. First of all, the crime of market manipulation (provided for and punished by articles 81 of the Italian criminal code, 110 of the Italian criminal code, 185 of Legislative Decree no. 58 of 28 February 1998). As can be read in the documents of the trial “ they spread false news about the patrimonial, economic and financial situation of the indicated company , concretely capable of causing a significant alteration in the price of the ordinary shares listed on the Mercato Telematico Azionario of the Italian Stock Exchange; in particular, they disclosed under the item "Proceeds from players' rights management" the amount of € 49,728,000 as "Capital gains from the sale of players' rights" deriving from "exchange" operations, integrating "exchanges of intangible assets", in violation of the requirements required by international accounting standard IAS 38 paragraph 45 and, specifically, in the absence of a reliably measurable fair value, resulting in a loss for the year of €39,896,000 instead of €84,505,00010 and shareholders' equity of €31,243. 000 instead of – €13,366,000”. For this remainder, the penalty ranges from 1 to 3 years, and can be increased in particularly serious cases.

FALSE MARKET COMMUNICATIONS AND FALSE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

Added to this is the crime of false communications to the market which carries a penalty of 1 to 6 years, and finally false accounting and a penalty of 3 to 8 years. For the latter offence , the choice of sanction will be more serious because Juventus is a company listed on the stock exchange . The deeds read that "in order to obtain an unfair profit for themselves, in the financial statements, reports or other corporate communications addressed to the shareholders or the public, they knowingly disclosed material facts that did not correspond to the truth as well as omitted relevant material facts whose communication is imposed by law on the economic, patrimonial or financial situation of the company, in a concrete way capable of misleading others and concealing the erosion of the share capital; in particular, in the annual financial report relating to the financial statements for the year ended 30 June 2019, they entered in the income statement, under the item "Income from players' rights management", the amount of € 49,728,000 by way of "Capital gains from the sale of players' rights " deriving from "exchange" transactions, integrating "exchanges of intangible assets", in violation of the requirements established by the international accounting standard IAS 38, paragraph 45 and, in particular, in the absence of a reliably measurable fair value, thus arriving at a loss for the year equal to €39,896,000 instead of €84,505,00011 and to shareholders' equity equal to €31,243,000 instead of –€13,366,000”.

OBSTACLE TO CONSOB SUPERVISION

The crimes of false invoicing are also contested, with sentences ranging from 18 months to 6 years, market manipulation, a penalty of between 1 and 6 years, fraudulent declarations, between 2 and 4 and a half years and obstruction of the supervisory authorities (CONSOB): sentence from 1 to 4 years. How the judges contested the content of the press release entitled "Agreement with the players and coach of the First Team", in which they put pen to paper " that they had reached an agreement with the players and the coach of the First Team regarding their fees for the remainder of the current football season ”. The agreement should have provided for the reduction of the remuneration for an amount equal to the months of March, April, May and June 2020 with economic and financial effects deriving from the agreement equal to approximately "90 million on the 2019/2020 financial year". In reality, the judges write, "the agreement reached on the same date with the players and not made public (private agreement signed by AGNELLI Andrea and CHIELLINI Giorgio) provided for the renunciation of only one month's wages , with certain and unconditional recovery of three months' wages in the following seasons, regardless of the resumption of football activity and the transfer of the player to third-party clubs, with consequent positive economic and financial effects, at the most, for only Euro 25 million".

THE AGGRAVATION OF THE SANCTION FRAMEWORK

This disciplinary framework will worsen due to the "formal concurrence-continued crime" which provides for an increase of 1/3 of the penalty for the most serious of the crimes committed and the "concursus delinquentium" (i.e. competition in the crime with material contribution and/or morale of at least two or more subjects), for which, as Paolo Ziliani writes, the equal responsibility of the co-participants is envisaged.

FALSE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS: "HIDDEN" LOSSES OF MORE THAN 200 MILLION

The picture for Juventus, for which, as a "legal entity" the indictment has been requested as well as for Agnelli and all the former board of directors, is worrying. The allegations of false accounting crimes concern the years 2019 (declared a loss of 39.8 million instead of 84.5 and a net worth of 31.2 million instead of a negative one of -13.38), 2020 ( declared a loss of 89.6 million instead of 236.7 and reported shareholders' equity of 239.2 million instead of only 47.5), and 2021 (declared a loss on the balance sheet of 209.5 million instead of 222, 4 and shareholders' equity of 28.8 million instead of a negative one of -175.7 million). Among other things, Andrea Agnelli has already been hit by a 1-year ban for relations with the criminal ultras in the Alto Piemonte investigation, and for the capital gains trial he received a 2-year ban, however, with 5 years, the request for radiation.

PECUNIARY SANCTIONS

To all this will be added the financial sanctions provided for by the penal, civil and sporting codes and the compensation for damages chapter. In short, a real "bloodbath" is looming for the Old Lady who could receive further penalties. Meanwhile, on 1 March Juventus will present an appeal to the Guarantee College at CONI against the decision to inflict a 15-point penalty . This was communicated a few days ago by the Chief Football Officer of Juventus, Francesco Calvo.

This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/le-carte-della-procura-che-inguaiano-la-juventus-nascosti-piu-di-200-milioni-di-perdite/ on Sat, 04 Mar 2023 13:39:08 +0000.