Franzo Grande Stevens (born 13 September 1928) is an Italian lawyer. Grande Stevens is famous for being the lawyer of the Agnelli family, and he was one of the triad of longtime advisors of Gianni Agnelli. He continues to advise his grandson and heir John Elkann. He served as chairman of Juventus F.C. from 2003 to 2006.[1]
Early life
Born in Naples, he is the grandson of tycoon Franzo Grande. Of Anglo-Sicilian-Neapolitan origin, one branch of the family is from Avola, while the other is English,[2][3][4] and to this he owes the second part of the surname.[5] Grande Stevens lived his adolescence in Naples,[6] where he obtained his liceo classico diploma and jurisprudence degree at the Federico II University, where he was a pupil of Alessandro Galante Garrone [it]. Having exhausted the experience of the apprenticeship alongside the lawyer Francesco Barra Caracciolo di Basciano, he moved to Turin, where he became a consultant of Gianni Agnelli, the president of Fiat S.p.A. He held positions in several large Italian companies, such as Toro Assicurazioni [it], and was also the president of the Order of the Italian Lawyers [it] and the vice-chairman of Fiat.[7]
Career
Enrolled in the Register of Lawyers (Italian: Albo degli avvocati) since 1954, Grande Stevens became one of Agnelli's trusted persons; he was vice-chairman of Fiat, the company owned by Agnelli. Like Vittorio Caissotti di Chiusano [it] before him, he was nicknamed "the lawyer's lawyer".[8] In 1976, he participated as public defender in the trial of the historical leaders of the Red Brigades, together with the president of the council of the Turin bar association, Fulvio Croce,[9][10][11] who was later assassinated by the Red Brigades.[12] He wrote Vita d'un avvocato, published by Cedam in 2000, more than twenty years after the murder of Croce, about the affair.[13]
Over time, Grande Stevens followed the corporate events of the most important industrial groups in the country, often holding managerial positions within them. He was chairman (Italian: presidente) of Toro Assicurazioni, CIGA hotels, the National Forensic Fund [it], and from 1985 to 1991 also of the National Forensic Council [it]. He held the presidency of the Compagnia di San Paolo and sat on the boards of directors of IFIL Investments [it] and RCS MediaGroup. Among his clients were the likes of Carlo De Benedetti, Luigi Giribaldi, Aga Khan IV, and Adriana Volpe, and companies like Ferrero, Pininfarina, and Lavazza.[14]
Juventus F.C.
In August 2003, Grande Stevens succeeded Caissotti di Chiusano, who had died on 31 July 2003, as chairman of the board of directors of Juventus F.C., the Agnelli family-owned association football club in Turin.[15] Grande Stevens held the position until he was replaced by Giovanni Cobolli Gigli, amid the Calciopoli scandal, in 2006; he was made honorary chairman (Italian: presidente onorario) of the club including former Juventus player Giampiero Boniperti.[16][17] As of the 2022–23 Juventus F.C. season, he remains one of the club's honorary chairmen.[18]
His role in the aftermath of Calciopoli is questioned. The scandal itself remains a much-debated topic due to the one-side focus on Juventus and its harsh, unprecedented punishment.[19][20][21] Some observers allege that Calciopoli and its aftermath were also a dispute within Juventus and between the club's owners,[nb 1] including Grande Stevens and Gianluigi Gabetti who favoured John Elkann over Andrea Agnelli as chairman,[22] and wanted to get rid of Luciano Moggi, Antonio Giraudo,[23][24] and Roberto Bettega, whose shares in the club increased.[25] Whatever their intentions, it is argued they condemned Juventus, firstly when Carlo Zaccone, the club's lawyer,[26] agreed for relegation to Serie B and point-deduction,[nb 2] and secondly when Luca Cordero di Montezemolo retired the club's appeal to the Regional Administrative Court (TAR) of Lazio,[20][nb 3] which could have cleared the club's name and avoid relegation, after FIFA threatened to suspend the Italian Football Federation (FIGC) from international play;[29] then FIFA president Sepp Blatter personally thanked Montezemolo.[30][31] As a company, Juventus were acquitted in the Calciopoli trials.[32][33]
Exor
In 2009, Grande Stevens was prosecuted for market manipulation in the equity swap of IFI–IFIL that is now Exor, Agnelli's holding company and Fiat's financial company.[34] The trial, which began on 26 March 2009, saw him involved for the equity swap of IFI–IFIL and Exor that in 2005 allowed the Agnelli heirs to maintain control of Fiat;[35][36] according to the prosecution, this was kept hidden for many months to the Consob and the market. According to the Turin investigating judge, Francesco Moroni, Grande Stevens had to answer for information rigging (Italian: aggiotaggio informativo), or microcap stock fraud. Also involved in the investigation were the then IFIL president Gianluigi Gabetti and managing director Virgilio Marrone;[37] all three defendants were acquitted on 21 December 2010.[38][39] On 21 February 2013, in the appeal process, Grande Stevens was sentenced to 1 year and 4 months, after Italy's Supreme Court of Cassation annulled the acquittal. On 17 December 2013, the Court of Cassation annulled the sentence without a remand to a new court due to the statute of limitations.[40]
In 2011, Grande Stevens was influential in encouraging Exor CEO John Elkann to move Exor's headquarters from Turin to Hong Kong. Exor, the business group is expanding further into the global market and Hong Kong is one of the most important hubs of international finance and the main access route to the Asian market.[41]
Personal life
Married since 1954, he has a son, Riccardo Grande Stevens.[42][43] In 2018, he described himself as "a Turinese from Naples", and said he can speak the Piedmontese language.[44] Grande Stevens was a personal friend of Sergio Marchionne,[45] who was CEO of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles,[46] and whom he described as having a father–son relationship. When Marchionne died in 2018, there were talks of a shoulder surgery but many had assumed that lung cancer was behind his death,[47][48][49] including Grande Stevens, who wrote a letter in the Corriere della Sera.[50][51][52] He said: "When I learned from London TV that he had been hospitalized in Zurich, I unfortunately thought that his life was in danger. Because I knew his inability to escape the constant smoke of cigarettes. However, when I learned it was just shoulder surgery, I hoped. Instead, as I feared, from Zurich I received confirmation that his lungs had been attacked and I understood that he was near the end."[53]
^About the behavior of Juventus executives at the time and their lack of defance, 1980 Totonero chief investigator Corrado De Biase stated: "I can't know why the Juventus owners has moved in a certain way, but I would say, 99%, that the affair was skilfully managed by the leaders of the Turin club, starting with the request from Zaccone, who left everyone stunned. Zaccone isn't incompetent, as many believe, but he was only an actor in this story."[20] De Biase further said: "The point that makes me think that Zaccone acted on input from the owners is another, namely the way in which the top management of Juventus moved, with that fake appeal to the TAR. How, I wonder, you dismiss the executives, practically pleading guilty, then you watch inert and impassive a media and judicial destruction against your club and then you're threatening to resort to the TAR? It's the concept of closing the barn when the oxen have fled, if you think about it."[20]
^In later years, Zaccone clarified he made that statement because Juventus were the only club risking more than one-division relegation (Serie C),[27] and he meant for Juventus to have equal treatment with the other clubs; in the end, Juventus were the sole club to be relegated to Serie B.[28]
^About the club's renounce to the TAR appeal, De Biase said: "First you let yourself be massacred without lifting a finger, you have the title disassigned, you have the calendars drawn up for the European championships and cups, and then you threaten to go to the TAR, trumpeting everything in the newspapers? It looks much like a political move to appease the wrath of the fans, I think. If Zaccone, who is a man of value and experience, would have had the mandate to avoid the disaster he would have moved in a different way, in the sense that he would have pointed out these 'anomalies' in the time between the trial and the announcement of the verdicts. That, in fact, was the right moment to threaten to appeal to the TAR, when the sentences had not yet been written, but had to be done in camera caritatis, asking for a meeting with Ruperto, Sandulli, and Palazzi, and not in front of the journalists of La Gazzetta dello Sport."[20] De Biase concluded: "Please note that I'm not discussing the high strategy of the forensic art, but the basic principles, the ABC of the profession, the things that are taught to the boys who come to the studio to do a traineeship: if you, the defence attorney, think you have weapons to play, you ask for a meeting with the judge and the public prosecution, in the period between the trial and the verdict, and point out that, if the response is judged too severe, you will use them. And here there were weapons in industrial quantities. Then, in the face of a fait accompli, who takes the responsibility of stopping a machine that grinds billions of euros, so as to be the sixth industry in the country?"[20]
^ abcdefCambiaghi, Emilio; Dent, Arthur (15 April 2010). Il processo illecito(PDF) (1st ed.). Stampa Indipendente. pp. 1–10, 47–57. Retrieved 21 February 2023 – via Ju29ro. [p. 9] The Juventus defence, among other things, objects that a sum of several Articles 1 (unfair and dishonest sporting conduct) cannot lead to an indictment for Article 6 (sporting offence), using for example the metaphor that so many defamations do not carry a murder conviction: an unimpeachable objection. ... [p. 10] Hence the grotesque concept of 'standings altered without any match-fixing'. The 'Calciopoli' rulings state that there is no match-fixing. That the championship under investigation, 2004–2005, is to be considered regular. But that the Juventus management has achieved effective standings advantages for Juventus FC even without altering the individual matches. In practice, Juventus were convicted of murder, with no one dead, no evidence, no accomplices, no murder weapon. Only for the presence of a hypothetical motive.
^Ingram, Sam (20 December 2021). "Calciopoli Scandal: Referee Designators As Desired Pawns". ZicoBall. Retrieved 21 February 2023. FIGC's actions in relegating Juventus and handing the title to Inter Milan were somewhat peculiar. Of course, Moggi and Juventus deserved punishment; that is not up for dispute. However, the severity of the ruling and the new location for the Scudetto was unprecedented and arguably should never have happened. The final ruling in the Calciopoli years later judged that Juventus had never breached article 6. As a result, the Serie A champions should never have encountered a shock 1–1 draw away to Rimini in the season's curtain-raiser. Nor should they have trounced Piacenza 4–0 in Turin or handed a 5–1 thrashing away to Arezzo in Tuscany. The findings stated that some club officials had violated article 6, but none had originated from Juventus. FIGC created a structured article violation with their decision-making. This means that instead of finding an article 6 breach, several article 1 violations were pieced together to create evidence damning to warrant relegation from Italy's top flight. Article 1 violations in Italian football usually command fines, bans, or points deductions, but certainly not relegation.
^Coccia, Pasquale (18 January 2020). "Il contado tifa per la zebra". Il manifesto (in Italian). Retrieved 8 February 2023. De Luna: We consulted the company financial statements, and noted the escalation of the emoluments that Moggi, Giraudo, and Bettega received. We don't have certain elements to be able to say that at that moment there was an attempt to take over Juventus, but those figures are impressive. Furthermore, there are some anomalies of the Agnellis which leave the door open to this type of hypothesis. The Calciopoli investigation was born out of a Turin investigation by the prosecutor Guariniello on the Juventus doping case, [in which] the interceptions of Moggi's conversations with the referees emerge. Guariniello sends the files to the boss Maddalena, notes that there are no crimes from a criminal point of view, but perhaps from a sporting point of view. Maddalena keeps the files for three months, then sends them to the [Italian] Football Federation. This period lasts a little over a year. Do you really [want to believe] that Juve didn't know what was going on? I have the impression that the Agnelli family took advantage of this opportunity to stop an attempt to take over the Moggi-Giraudo-Bettega company.
^Beha, Oliviero (7 February 2012). "Il 'caso Moggi' e le colpe della stampa: non fa inchieste, (di)pende dai verbali, non sa leggere le sentenze". Tiscali (in Italian). Archived from the original on 12 March 2012. Retrieved 24 January 2023. ... the motivations in 558 pages are summarized as follows. 1) Championships not altered (therefore championships unjustly taken away from Juve...), matches not fixed, referees not corrupted, investigations conducted incorrectly by the investigators of the Public Prosecutor's Office (interceptions of the Carabinieri which were even manipulated in the confrontation in the Chamber). 2) The SIM cards, the foreign telephone cards that Moggi has distributed to some referees and designators, would be proof of the attempt to alter and condition the system, even without the effective demonstration of the rigged result. 3) Moggi's attitude, like a real 'telephone' boss, is invasive even when he tries to influence the [Italian Football Federation] and the national team, see the phone calls with Carraro and Lippi. 4) That these phone calls and this 'mafia' or 'sub-mafia' promiscuity aimed at 'creating criminal associations' turned out to be common practice in the environment as is evident, does not acquit Moggi and C.: and therefore here is the sentence. ... Finally point 1), the so-called positive part of the motivations, that is, in fact everything is regular. And then the scandal of 'Scommettopoli' [the Italian football scandal of 2011] in which it's coming out that the 2010–2011 championship [won by Milan] as a whole with tricks is to be considered really and decidedly irregular? The Chief Prosecutor of Cremona, Di Martino, says so for now, while sports justice takes its time as always, but I fear that many will soon repeat it, unless everything is silenced. With all due respect to those who want the truth and think that Moggi has objectively become the 'scapegoat'. Does the framework of information that does not investigate, analyze, compare, and take sides out of ignorance or bias seem slightly clearer to you?
^Rossini, Claudio (5 March 2014). "Calciopoli e la verità di comodo". Blasting News (in Italian). Retrieved 21 February 2023. Juventus have been acquitted, the offending championships (2004/2005 and 2005/2006) have been declared regular, and the reasons for the conviction of Luciano Moggi are vague; mostly, they condemn his position, that he was in a position to commit a crime. In short, be careful to enter a shop without surveillance because even if you don't steal, you would have had the opportunity. And go on to explain to your friends that you're honest people after the morbid and pro-sales campaign of the newspapers. ... a company has been acquitted, and no one has heard of it, and whoever has heard of it, they don't accept it. The verdict of 2006, made in a hurry, was acceptable, that of Naples was not. The problem then lies not so much in vulgar journalism as in readers who accept the truths that are convenient. Juventus was, rightly or wrongly, the best justification for the failures of others, and it was in popular sentiment, as evidenced by the new controversies concerning 'The System.' But how? Wasn't the rotten erased? The referees since 2006 make mistakes in good faith, the word of Massimo Moratti (the only 'honest'). ... it isn't a question of tifo, but of a critical spirit, of the desire to deepen and not be satisfied with the headlines (as did Oliviero Beha, a well-known Viola [Fiorentina] fan, who, however, drew conclusions outside the chorus because, despite enjoying it as a tifoso, he suffered as a journalist. He wasn't satisfied and went into depth. He was one of the few).
Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic, 27 January 1990.[54]
