The team from Tremonti Romagnoli Piccardi e Associati, composed of partner Cristiano Caumont Caimi and  senior associate Ilaria Cherchi, successfully defended Banca Euromobiliare, the private bank of the Credem group, and Citibank before the Italian Supreme Court, in a dispute concerning the determination of the value of a going-concern of a bank for the purposes of registration tax.

The Supreme Court, in upholding the appeal of the companies, overturned the decision of the court of appeal, stating that the bank deposits – whose relevance was challenged due to the positive difference between the amount of the same and the liquidity present in the going-concern at the date of transfer – form an essential component of a bank’s commercial organization.

As such, they constitute an inherent liability to the going concern and are generally deductible from its transfer value for the purposes of registration tax, and they do not represent, on the other hand, an assumption of a debt, which should be taxable as it was part of the sale price.