The European Central Bank is wrong and Fininvest of the late former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and today of his five heirs is right. The post-mortem rehabilitation of the Knight took place yesterday at European level with the opinion of the Advocate General of the Court of Justice of the EU, Campos Sanchez-Bordona, in the controversy regarding the acquisition of a qualified 30.16% stake by Fininvest in Banca Mediolanum , a listed credit institution founded by the late Ennio Doris and now in the hands of his two children, Massimo and Annalisa Sara. According to the Attorney General, in fact, the decision with which the ECB in October 2016 (at the time the president was Mario Draghi) denied the acquisition of a qualified stake in Banca Mediolanum by Fininvest and Berlusconi, must be « canceled in its entirety”. “. In essence, Sanchez-Bordona believes that the challenges to Eurotower’s decisions presented by Fininvest, first Silvio Berlusconi and then by his heirs, must be accepted. The conclusions of the Attorney General of the Republic indicate a possible legal solution to the case, but they do not bind the Court, which will decide autonomously in the coming months.
Let’s go in order. In 2015, the financial holding company Mediolanum was formed by its subsidiary Banca Mediolanum. Taking into account its participation in the share capital of Mediolanum equal to 30.1%, Fininvest, majority owned by Berlusconi, now holds an identical share in the capital of Banca Mediolanum. However, a year earlier, the Bank of Italy then led by Ignazio Visco had decided, on the one hand, to order the suspension of Fininvest’s voting rights in Mediolanum and the sale of its shares exceeding 9.99% and, on the other , rejected his request for authorization regarding the holding of a qualified shareholding in that entity, on the grounds that Berlusconi no longer met the suitability requirement as a result of his conviction for tax fraud in 2013. This decision by the Bank of Italy was, however, annulled by the decision of the Council of State of 3 March 2016. The Bank of Italy and the ECB then initiated a new procedure to evaluate the acquisition of the stake, after which Eurotower, acting on a proposal from Via Nazionale, adopted a decision to reject authorization of the acquisition of a qualified shareholding in the bank, alleging that Berlusconi did not meet the suitability condition applicable to holders of qualified shareholdings. In December 2016, Fininvest and Berlusconi filed an appeal to annul the ECB’s decision before the European Court, but in May 2022 the Court rejected the appeal in its entirety, condemning Fininvest and Berlusconi and confirming Eurotower’s decision.
Subsequently, the Biscione group and Berlusconi’s heirs, who assumed his procedural position after his death in 2023, filed an appeal against the Court’s decision giving several reasons. Yesterday, with his conclusions, the Advocate General suggested that the appeal presented by the two appellants could be upheld and, consequently, that the ECB’s decision be annulled in its entirety. Accordingly, in fact, the EU Court committed a series of errors of law in assessing the effects of the control exercised by the appellants over Banca Mediolanum, among others with regard to the conditions that legitimize the ECB to impose the requirement of authorization for the acquisition or increase of qualified participation in credit institutions. In particular, Fininvest and Berlusconi’s shareholding in Banca Mediolanum has always been a qualified holding of 30.16%. And as there was no increase in this participation after the entry into force of Single Banking Supervision, authorization from the ECB was not necessary, as it was a “historic” qualified participation.
Source: IL Tempo
Roy Brown is a renowned economist and author at The Nation View. He has a deep understanding of the global economy and its intricacies. He writes about a wide range of economic topics, including monetary policy, fiscal policy, international trade, and labor markets.
