With reference to reports published today by an important newspaper, at the request of Consob, Telecom Italia clarifies that it was already informed that Carlo Buora, former executive officer of the company, and Roberto Moro, Head of the Tax Department, were the subjects of two penal proceedings regarding the crime of “unfaithful statements” concerning VAT and income declaration (ex art. 4 of legislative decree n. 74/2000). These cases do not entail administrative liability for a corporation under the legislative decree n. 231/2001 and therefore Telecom Italia is not involved in the above mentioned proceedings.
With regards to the fiscal issues, the first proceeding regards the objections concerning extraordinary operations carried out in the 2002-2007 period on the merger of Telecom Italia into Olivetti and the sale of Seat Pagine Gialle, as well as the deductibility of some expense items concerning the “Security” costs, with reference to which the Company and the Revenue Agency reached an agreement in December 2008, before the case was brought to court, on the basis of the tax conciliation procedure at a cost to the Company of about euro 186 million as reported in the notes to the 2008 financial report.
The second proceeding (brought by the Rome Public Prosecutors Office in 2008 and then sent to the Milan Public Prosecutors Office) regards VAT reversal procedure for transactions undertaken with defaulting parties. The correctness of this procedure (introduced in 1995 on the basis of authoritative advice) had already been verified by the Revenue Agency, without criticisms, in 2002.
Milan, 13 April 2010