Flavio Briatore, after having been definitively acquitted of charges of tax fraud concerning his yacht “Force Blue,” has commenced legal proceedings before the Court of Turin to claim damages against both the court appointed administrator and certain judicial authorities involved in the case. Specifically, Mr Briatore is claiming EUR 12.66 million to compensate damages for what he alleges was an unlawful undervaluation of his yacht at the time of sale.
The yacht, owned by Autumn Sailing (a company that may be tracked back to Briatore), was arrested in 2010 during a tax fraud investigation. In 2018, an initial conviction by the Court of Appeal was partially annulled by the Italian Supreme Court and remitted for further review; the subsequent proceedings ended with no conviction due to the statute of limitations. Briatore’s final exoneration from the tax charges did not, however, result in the restitution of the Force Blue, which by that point had been confiscated and sold (in 2021) to Bernie Ecclestone for approximately EUR 6 million.
Briatore contests that the above sale price represented a substantial “distress” sale, and now he seeks to recover the difference between that sale price and the yacht’s alleged true market value—a shortfall that, according to Briatore, amounts to EUR 12.66 million. In his claim, Briatore calls as defendants both the court appointed administrate and the Prime Minister’s Office, in accordance with a 1988 statute providing for the liability of the Italian State. If the court accepts Briatore’s claim of damages, the Prime Minister’s Office might challenge such decision before the Court of Appeal of Genoa through the Court of Auditors.
This case might have a pioneering role for similar situations, such as the arrested yachts of Russian citizens, sanctioned on the blacklists of the European Union.