Ferrari chair John Elkann in fresh family legal battle over inheritance

It could raise questions about the control of the luxury car firm

John Elkann, centre left, and Lavinia Borromeo leave a hotel ahead of Jeff Bezos’s wedding in Venice (AP)

Ferrari and Stellantis chairman John Elkann is embroiled in a new legal dispute with his mother, Margherita Agnelli, after her lawyers presented a previously undisclosed handwritten amendment to her father, Gianni Agnelli’s, will.

The document, presented during a court hearing in Turin, could now raise questions over the ownership of Dicembre, the holding company at the top of Exor.

Exor, the Agnelli family investment firm led by Mr Elkann, controls luxury carmaker Ferrari and is the primary investor in Fiat-to-Jeep maker Stellantis.

Dicembre is currently owned by Margherita Agnelli’s three children from her first marriage: Mr Elkann and his siblings, Lapo and Ginevra.

Margherita Agnelli is locked in an inheritance dispute with the three of them over Gianni's estate after his death in 2003.

The handwritten note, dated 20 January 1998, was filed at a hearing on Monday, according to her lawyers.

It forms part of the civil case which she has brought in proceedings that are dividing one of Italy's best-known families.

The document could raise questions over the ownership of Dicembre, the holding company at the top of Exor, which controls Ferrari (AP)

In the signed note, Gianni Agnelli stated that his roughly 25 per cent stake in Dicembre should be assigned to his son Edoardo, who subsequently died in 2000.

A separate document from 1996 had indicated that the shareholding should go to John Elkann, his grandson – which is what happened.

John Elkann's legal team said the alleged new document had no bearing on agreements reached in 2004 about Gianni Agnelli's estate.

The note was found during a separate criminal investigation by the Turin prosecutor's office into alleged tax evasion that ended this month with Elkann agreeing to a year of community service.

When Gianni Agnelli's will was opened in February 2003, the heirs had information only relating to the 1996 document, Margherita Agnelli's lawyers argued.

As a result, Gianni's widow, Marella Caracciolo donated a 25.37 per cent stake in Dicembre to Elkann, enabling him to gain a majority.

Margherita Agnelli's lawyers say that their client and Marella Caracciolo should have kept the portion of Dicembre intended for Edoardo.

She inherited €1.2 billion ($1.4 billion) after her father died but wants a greater share of the estate for her five children from her second marriage.

"The management of the Agnelli estate was established with the settlement agreement of February 2004, following which Margherita definitively withdrew from Dicembre's capital," Mr Elkann's lawyers said.