The owner and a board member of the defunct Privilege Yard in Italy are under house arrest. The charges: fraudulent bankruptcy filings, tax crimes, and violating anti-mafia legislation. This, following two failed auctions to sell the shipyard and a partially built megayacht on the property.
Several Italian news outlets reported the arrests of Mario La Via, CEO of Privilege Yard, and Antonio Baptist, a board member in charge of the builder’s finances. They came on July 28, at the order of the public prosecutor of Civitavecchia, where Privilege Yard is located. The prosecutor alleges that Privilege Yard’s sole purpose was to pool money from a consortium of banks to fuel the appetites of La Via and several others. Those individuals include former members of the Italian Parliament and the former Vatican Secretary of State. Among other things, the prosecutor states, La Via and Baptist spent €320,000 on two Maserati and Ferrari cars.
Tax police in Rome, sent by the public prosecutor, executed the house arrests. The moves are part of an ongoing investigation of the misappropriation of hundreds of millions of euros. The newspaper Repubblica reports, for example, that Privilege Yard wrote off a €4-million renovation of La Via’s home, as the company’s guest quarters. Repubblica also reports that Privilege Yard paid the Civitavecchia port-authority president’s rent. The cost was three times the average market value from 2011 to 2012. (The president denies this, telling the newspaper that Privilege Yard leased the apartment, and did so at true market rates.) In addition, Repubblica reports that the tax police discovered documentation related to the Vatican Secretary of State. The documentation reveals €700,000 worth of subsidies paid to Italian and foreign associations at his behest between February 2008 and November 2012.
Privilege Yard has a rocky past. La Via established it in 2006 to focus on megayachts exceeding 328 feet (100 meters). In 2008, Privilege Yard announced its first contract: Privilege One (above, in 2014), measuring 417 feet (127 meters). Rising 10 decks, Privilege One was set for launch in late 2012. Five banks agreed to loan a total of €190 million for construction, with €125 million provided. In December 2012, however, news broke that Banca Etruria, one of the five banks, was in financial distress. It therefore stopped funding. In addition, craftspeople claimed they were unpaid. In 2014, La Via said funding was restarting, and work was set to resume. He added that Privilege One would launch late that year or in early 2015. The news reports and a marketing brochure stated that financially, Privilege One was 82-percent complete. They also stated that physically, she was 60-percent complete.
Privilege One did not restart, however. The Court of Civitavecchia then ordered Privilege Yard’s gates locked in June 2015. This came after the builder failed to pay €210 million in debt. The court sought to auction both Privilege Yard and the partially built Privilege One this past June to recoup some of the money owed. Privilege One sits rusting, unprotected from the elements. No buyer came forward. A second auction in early July also failed to secure a buyer.
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