Lexia Avvocati, with tax lawyer Alessandro Dagnino, a founding partner and head of the tax and public finance area of the firm, won in the Sicilian second-degree Tax Court alongside the Municipality of Gela against Eni Mediterranea Idrocarburi.

Already in the first instance, accepting the Municipality’s arguments, it had been established that the company owning three offshore oil platforms near Gela: “Gela Mare,” “Gela Perla,” and “Prezioso” had to pay local taxes for the three-year period from 2016 to 2018, in addition to interest and penalties, totaling 12 million euros. A ruling not shared by the extraction company, which, with its defense, filed an appeal with a document of 147 pages.

Accepting the exception raised by Lexia, the judges declared the appeal inadmissible for violating the rules of the tax process which prescribe the obligation of conciseness in defensive documents. On the merits, the Panel confirmed the first-degree decision.

Satisfaction was expressed by tax lawyer Alessandro Dagnino. “The decision,” he explains, “not only endorses the correctness of our arguments regarding the merits, advanced in both the first and second instance, but is also of utmost interest because it is one of the first in Italy to declare inadmissibility for violating the duty of conciseness.”