ROME (AFP) - A Turin court on Thursday began hearing a lawsuit brought by Fiat boss Gianni Agnellis daughter, who is seeking full disclosure on the extent of the late industrialists vast fortune.
Margherita Agnelli de Pahlen, 52, was not present at the closed-door hearing in the northern city, which came as a photographic exhibit opened in Rome on Thursday celebrating the life of the Fiat tycoon, Italys most famous industrialist, an art aficionado and mens fashion trendsetter.
His widow Marella Agnelli Caracciolo and her grandson John Elkann, Fiats vice president, were on hand as Italian President Giorgio Napolitano opened the exhibit.
De Pahlen has alienated her family -- dubbed the "Italian Kennedys" -- in her bid to learn whether a 2004 inheritance accord disposed of Agnellis entire fortune.
She "seeks to know the details of her fathers inheritance," according to a written summary of the lawsuit naming three trusted advisers of the magnate who died in 2003.
"She charges the advisers were denying a full accounting of it to her. ... It is curious that the true size of Gianni Agnellis fortune has never been made public," says the dossier provided to AFP by De Pahlens lawyers.
De Pahlen accepted the inheritance she received in the private accord reached in Switzerland.
Including the proceeds of the sale of her stake in Fiat, she was awarded 300 million euros in cash, plus real estate and part of the familys collection of artwork with a value estimated at some 500 million euros.
Press reports say the overall fortune is worth at least two billion euros (three billion dollars).
De Pahlens lawyer Girolamo Abbatescianni told the weekly Panorama magazine: "Theres the estate in Italy, declared and divided normally. ... Were just asking if theres more" abroad.
Caracciolos lawyer Marco Weigmann told AFP that she and the advisers had appealed to Romes Cassation Court to rule on the Turin courts jurisdiction to hear the suit, a decision that could take months.
They argue that two of the respondents named in the case -- Caracciolo and Siegfried Maron, who manages private assets for the family -- live in Switzerland.
Judge Brunella Rosso adjourned Tuesdays hearing to consider a motion to suspend the case pending the Cassation Court decision.
De Pahlen, Agnellis only surviving child, and her mother are the sole direct heirs to the Agnelli fortune after the apparent suicide of his son Edoardo in 2000.
The three aides named in the suit are Maron; Franzo Grande Stevens, the executor of Agnellis will; and Gianluigi Gabetti, the head of the Agnelli family holding company that owns 30 percent of Fiat.
The late Agnellis five sisters wrote to De Pahlen last June urging her to drop the lawsuit, while her mother branded the move "an act of ingratitude that betrays the will of Gianni Agnelli."
De Pahlens sons John and Lapo Elkann have also declared themselves shocked and saddened by the suit.
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