Milan, seizures in Luxembourg for the Elliott-RedBird-Corriere.it sale

Searches and seizures in Elliott’s Luxembourg holdings which on August 31, 2022 sold Milan for 1.12 billion to Gerald Cardinale’s RedBird. The judicial police of the Grand Duchy – according to what has been learned – presented themselves this morning in the offices of Project Redblack with a search and seizure order from judge Claude Pascal at the request for judicial assistance from the prosecutors of Milan, Giovanni Polizzi and Giovanna Cavalleri.

Kidnappings and bankruptcy hypothesis

The crimes of abuse of corporate assets and fraudulent bankruptcy are alleged against three directors of the company: they are Elliott’s manager, Jean-Marc McLean, and local professionals Daniela Italia and Victor Schuh. The subject of the seizure are all paper and digital documents (accounting, banking, board of directors minutes, etc.) attributable to the management of the AC Milan sale and to the use of the sum collected from the sale. Until now it was known that the hypotheses of crime at the center of the investigations were embezzlement and obstacle to supervision.

Police also in Rossoneri Sport

The big caliber of fraudulent bankruptcy now comes into play in the investigation. According to rumors, which are not confirmed at the moment, documents were also acquired from Intertrust, the consultancy group that manages the administration of dozens of American fund companies, including Project Redblack. A similar search and seizure order would also have been carried out at Rossoneri Sport, also resident in the Grand Duchy, the company that owned 99.9% of Milan and materially collected the 1.12 billion from RedBird. Project Redblack the holding which, in turn, controls the Rossoneri.

The complaint at the basis of the investigation

The Milanese criminal investigation born (and then developed independently) from a complaint by Blue Skye by Salvatore Cerchione and Gianluca D’Avanzo. Blue Skye was a minority shareholder (4.3%) of Project Redblack and believes it was damaged by the sale to RedBird which took place in a manner that would jeopardize its right to credit. In recent days the Courier had given notice of Blue Skye’s request to the Bankruptcy Court of Milan for the insolvency of the two Luxembourg companies to be declared. Among other things, the bankruptcy proceedings may have been the technical incipit that made it possible to hypothesize fraudulent bankruptcy. From the papers of that proceeding it had emerged that money and credits for over 1 billion euros, financial flows connected to the AC Milan sale, had been sent to the Cayman Islands and Delaware by Project Redblack and Rossoneri Sport just 24 hours after the blitz by the Guardia di Finanza of January 26, and this after the emergence in public of the investigation into the transfer of AC Milan from Paul Singer’s Elliott fund to RedBird.

Blue Skye reckless and specious

An unjustified multitude of reckless and specious judicial initiatives has been promoted by Blue Skye with an unscrupulous emulative purpose … macroscopically aimed at obtaining further and unnecessary economic advantages: this is the position expressed by Redbird’s lawyers and shared by Elliott on the legal offensive of former members.