An important Italian law firm, Gianni & Origoni, known in the world of high finance and white collars with the acronym GOP, could be involved in various capacities in the professional and speculative activities which then caused the stock market crash of BioOn, the famous Italian high-tech start-up which fell into default – with serious damage to savers – following the dissemination, by a fund domiciled in the Cayman Islands which speculated on the downside, of non-genuine news on its financial stability and its industrial performance.
To facilitate the understanding of this in-depth analysis on the possible role of the important Milanese law firm GOP – Gianni & Origoni in the group of those who in various capacities contributed to the crisis of the most promising Italian company producing 100% biodegradable plastic polymers, we frame Briefly the scenario: who are the protagonists of this Italian financial mystery?
What was Bio-On
Bio-On ‘s mission was to accelerate the replacement of traditional plastic with a completely ecological alternative, thanks to a technology that uses agricultural and agro-industrial production waste as raw material, stimulating bacterial fermentation capable of producing polymers with properties identical to those of synthetic plastics, but 100% biodegradable.
The project, founded by Marco Astorri and Guido Cicognani, was so successful that it allowed the start-up to reach a market capitalization of over one billion euros, making it enter the exclusive club of “unicorns” of the Italian Stock Exchange and, at the end of 2018 , to be classified by the Presidency of the Council of Ministers as Golden Power Company , i.e. a strategic company of national interest.
Bio-On boasted a vast network of collaborations with national and international academic institutions, and 69 active research projects, with centers of excellence such as the Universities of Milan, Bologna, Naples, the “Consorzio Futuro e Ricerca” of Ferrara, the University of Hawaii and Clarkson University in the USA, as well as Tampere University in Finland. Furthermore, Bio-On was the owner or exclusive licensee of 27 patent families, which included over 100 patent rights, as recognized by the Court of Bologna at the time of the default. These patents – which covered both production processes and products and applications – constituted a strategic asset of enormous value and attested to the innovative capacity and market potential of the company, whose financial solidity was guaranteed by the certification of financial statements carried out by accounting consultancy giants such as PriceWaterHouseCoopers® and later Ernst&Young® . With such a pedigree, Bio-On solidified its position as a rising star in the biopolymer industry, nationally and internationally.
The turning point: the stock market attack and the market collapse
Things changed dramatically in 2019 due to an attack orchestrated by Quintessential Capital Management (also known as QCM ), a small US offshore investment fund (actually registered in the Cayman Islands, a well-known tax haven), which having – as it became clear later – short-term speculative positions on Bio-On shares, triggered panic among investors and the subsequent rapid collapse of the stock market value, through the dissemination online of a video full of fake news and more generally with a real black PR campaign on Bio-On ,.
Shortly afterwards, the Bologna Prosecutor’s Office started an investigation, giving credence to the accusations of Quintessential – whose first operational address corresponded to that of a well-known American art museum (!) – starting a process which, paradoxically, led to the temporary detention of the CEO of Bio-On Marco Astorri, accused of alleged false communications to the market, and the seizure of the assets of other members of the management, for tens of millions of euros, developments which contributed to the suspension of operations and the subsequent Bio-On ‘s bankruptcy and bankruptcy filing .
Subsequently, however, an independent evaluation revealed that – despite the short-term fund’s report which defined it as “an empty box in debt for tens of millions of euros” – the value of Bio-On’s residual assets was between 95 and the 140 million euros , a discovery which raised further doubts about the adequacy of the legal and financial decisions which – according to the professionals interviewed – caused the perhaps too hasty “liquidation” of Bio-On, through “reverse auctions” which rapidly led to its total dissolution.
Journalistic developments, and judicial ones
The recent video investigation entitled “The BioOn case: Unfair Game” , produced by our newspaper, told this story, also underlining the vulnerabilities of innovative Italian start-ups in navigating complex and often unpredictable financial markets, and also highlighting the evident shortcomings of supervision by the national financial authorities, Consob in the lead, whose role should also be to monitor market fluctuations and intervene to defend the market itself. Instead, despite signs of irregular trading and the sudden collapse of shares, with over 700 million euros of value burned in a single day, the initiatives undertaken by Consob – according to what was declared by the interviewees – proved to be absent or in any case completely insufficient and not timely, if not downright counterproductive, raising questions about their effectiveness and the need to initiate concrete legislative reforms to protect the widespread interests of investors and savers . So much so that in recent days there has been news that two of the most important Italian law firms are evaluating the initiation of generalized protection actions ( class-actions ) to protect investors damaged by the collapse of Bio-On.
The latest judicial developments have been , if possible, even more sensational : during his hearing, the author of the critical video on BioOn Gabriel Grego , heard in the courtroom in Bologna on May 14th, admitted – as can be seen from the transcripts of his statements – to have had a direct economic interest in the fall of the Bio-On stock, having actively communicated with short-term investment and speculative funds , which would have purchased between 2 and 3% of Bio-On shares , and the they would have commissioned – through a specific contract – a report on the company, a report which was packaged by Grego with a negative slant and which in fact generated the collapse of the stock. Precisely on that occasion, on May 14, Grego – who confirmed that he had earned several million euros in fees from that operation – was served with a summons for damages by the lawyers of the founders of Bio-On, for a total of 270 million euros.
Furthermore, Gabriel Grego does not appear to be new to this type of operation: Quintessential created a short speculative position on the British technology company Darktrace in 2023, and then published – similarly to what was done with Bio-On – a report in which a series of of alleged irregularities of the company in question, causing the value of the shares on the London stock exchange to collapse, until a very detailed counter-report by Ernst&Young certified the good health of the information security company, stopping the hemorrhaging of value.
It is also worth mentioning the aggressive policy of dissuasion promoted by Gabriel Grego towards the subjects involved in interventions to correct the serious information asymmetry which has characterized for years the perception of the Bio-On dossier, strongly unbalanced towards the theses (never fully proven, moreover) by Grego. Policy which also took the form of legal warnings sent by the GOP to various subjects “guilty” of having exercised the constitutionally guaranteed right to freedom of the press, including several journalists, threatened with legal action for having narrated parts of this story, as shown by the letters sent for viewing by our editorial staff:
The assertiveness, at times “aggressive”, typical of Grego’s strategy, on the other hand, had already been confirmed in the past; in an interview with Gabriele Grego given to the journalist Luca Piana on 5 August 2019 on the pages of the newspaper La Repubblica , we can in fact read:
Journalist – Have you considered the legal consequences you might face?
G. GREGO – We made a very careful assessment of what to say, how to say it and the sources used (…) not only from a legal point of view, because obviously in this type of situation it is unthinkable to think that the company would bring a lawsuit and win it , or that they sue us, we have no problem, we are followed by the best law firms in the world and, exactly as we did with Bio-On, if someone sues, or makes a complaint against us, we always defend ourselves in a very aggressive and vigorous way, we always try to move the battle to the opponent’s terrain, as we did with Bio-On, but the important thing is that the cause is not won.
In any case, the interested parties responded to GOP’s warnings after a few hours, with a very dry counter-warning from the Grande Stevens law firm, which we report below:
Recently, the public presentation of our journalistic video investigation ” Bio-On: UnFair Game “ also stimulated extravagant warnings and legal threats, again signed by Studio GOP Gianni & Origoni on behalf of Gabriele Grego, as you can read here . The Regional Council, the institution that was supposed to host the event at Palazzo Regione Lombardia (“Pirellone”), has in fact received a letter with vaguely intimidating tones whose aim is evidently to censor the truth, and prevent us from re-establishing information symmetry on this matter of national interest:
The institution, incredibly, supinely succumbed to the pressure: in our opinion it is disappointing to have to take note of how an organization serving citizens, including savers who have lost their money due to that speculation, gives credence to a warning sent on behalf of the architect and creator of that unscrupulous operation , a speculator who still intervenes today to severely limit the freedom of the press and reporting.
In any case, we were not intimidated, and we identified a new location for the screening of the investigation, which took place royally on Thursday 13 June at 4pm, as promised.
Did the GOP play a role in supporting the actions that led to Bio-On’s collapse?
To now attempt to answer this important question, with significant ethical implications, given the damage caused to savers, let us carefully analyze some salient information, partly found from open sources, partly resulting from the spooling of the recordings of the depositions in Court collected during the hearings of the Bio-On trial, others extrapolated from transcripts of interceptions of the Guardia di Finanza and from other documentation transmitted to the attention of our editorial staff from confidential sources, acquired during our investigative activity.
Telephone Interceptions
To understand the type of relationships between Claudio Grego and the Gianni & Origoni firm, it may be interesting to examine the telephone interception of 6 September 2019, the partial transcription of which is reported below:
GREGO – I’m very well, I now live in Tel Aviv, I left Italy.
SIMONE – But I knew it, they told me… I don’t remember who, but I knew it.
GREGO – I’m opening… I’m already operational and I’m opening Gianni Rigoni’s desk in Israel.
SIMONE – Fuck! Good boy! Handsome!
GREGO – I am following these operations that take place between Italy and Israel both at a governmental, quasi-governmental level, and therefore the whole issue of cybernetics security, cybersecurity.
SIMONE – Incredible!
GREGO Oh…
SIMONE – Incredible because you can do something like that, and you certainly will, it’s really very nice because you’re going to do a job that you like at home. It’s crazy!
GREGO – Well! The decision was made when I went to the lawyer Gianni to tell him “I’m going to Israel”, he said “No, no, you’re not going to Israel, we ‘re going to Israel.” And so I also really liked her attitude…
Other Evidence
Below, some other evidence that may provide useful elements for understanding the relationships between GOP and Grego and the possible involvement of the well-known Milanese law firm in the Bio-On dossier
The transparency declaration of Maurizio Salom, the accountant who issued a negative opinion on Bio-On (president of the board of auditors of Bio-On’s main competitor, therefore in clear conflict of interests), declaration made available on the Quintessential website , reports Gianni , Origoni, Grippo & Partners in the title metadata.
Since 2013, he has been part of the law firm Gianni, Origoni, Grippo, Cappelli & Partners Claudio Grego , co-head of the Wealth & Trust Department, Claudio Grego is the father of Gabriel Grego.
The law firm Gianni, Origoni, Grippo, Cappelli & Partners was a partner of Borsa Italiana , and Claudio Grego, father of Gabriel Grego, was previously appointed head of the Legal Affairs and Regulation Department of Borsa Italiana SpA
In the La Stampa article of 18 November 2019 by Paolo Mastrolilli, in which Gabriele Grego states “There are other cases similar to Bio-On. We work on a couple of companies on the stock exchange ,” we read:
“ What do they say in your case? «An often repeated absurd theory is that it was a conspiracy (omissis, ed.), of which I was the bridgehead, aided by my father, by the CEO of the Italian Stock Exchange Rafaele Jerusalmi, and by the auditor Maurizio Salom»
A theory that to some qualified observers does not seem – to quote Grego’s own words – so “absurd”, if we consider that the Gianni Origoni Grippo firm is the law firm that assisted Gabriel Grego in the operation that exploded with the publication of the report “Bio-On SpA – A Parmalat in Bologna”, which generated the collapse of Bio-On stock, and has various professional connections with the Italian Stock Exchange.
The Gianni Origoni Grippo firm would have reassured Gabriel Grego of the legality – according to Italian laws – of the speculation operation against Bio-On that Grego intended to carry out in our country, while, incidentally, another law firm would have given a negative opinion to that speculation operation (verbatim from a statement by Grego: “We have hired a law firm, two law firms really, and one told us, advised us, to leave it alone, precisely to avoid this ambiguity, but the other, instead , he said that the best thing is to go… we first spoke to a person who was ex-Consob and who advised us that the best thing is to simply go and ask” )
Emanuele Grippo is a partner and lawyer of the Gianni & Origoni law firm, and is defined by Gabriele Grego as “his trusted lawyer in Italy”. On February 6, 2021, an interview with the lawyer was published online. Emanuele Grippo, GOP associate. The article that appeared was actually modified by the journalist, compared to the original version, following the protest of the former leaders of Bio-On SpA, but the original reported the following statement, which is difficult to misunderstand:
“To this,” continues Grippo, is added the issue of the effects of short sales on companies. “The global financial authorities have been thinking a lot about the limits to short selling for some time”, explains the lawyer, highlighting however that, also in light of what happened, “some more considerations should be made because, as demonstrated by the Bio-On case, short players can also have the advantage of bringing out opaque and fraudulent situations”.
Emanuele Grippo is also among the lawyers who participate in the meeting with Consob a few days before July 24, and who report the outcomes to Gabriele Grego, as demonstrated by the transcripts of the interviews at the hearing reported below. Emanuele Grippo also sent an email to Consob on 23 July 2019 at 10.00 am (UTC+1) with the subject “Report Quintessential Capital Management Bio-On SpA” , informing the supervisory authority of the imminent publication of the report “Bio-On SpA a Parmalat in Bologna?” , and refers to the lawyer Emanuele Grippo himself and to Dr. Giulia Staderini for any clarifications that may be necessary.
Dr. Giulia Staderini is of counsel of the law firm Gianni & Origoni, and – according to sources in our editorial staff – it seems that she was the one who recommended the meeting with Consob and also took part in it, together with Emanuele Grippo and, probably, to other GOP lawyers. Giulia Staderini was also an official in service at Consob from 1990 until 22 March 2017: then she moved on to work for Studio Gianni & Origoni, and in fact she is among the people, together with Emanuele Grippo, to whom, in the correspondence between the group of Grego and Consob, please refer to the Bio-On dossier for further information.
Transcripts From Court Hearings
To clarify the type of relationship between Gabriel Grego and the Gianni & Origoni firm, the transcripts of the hearings are also relevant. Below, some excerpts from the lawyer’s examination. Luigi Panella to Grego in the hearing of 14 May 2024 at the Court of Bologna (only the relevant passages are reported).
DEFENSE, LAWYER PANELLA – Did QCM or its lawyers inform Consob of the contents of its report? Because you said it was a listed company, so it was necessary to prepare this operation…
WITNESS GREGO – Yes, with your permission I will explain the context.
DEFENSE, LAWYER PANELLA – You’re welcome.
WITNESS GREGO – With the premise that this is a meeting that my lawyers held and not me personally, the outcome of this meeting was also reported to me by my lawyers on the telephone, so since I am sworn here I will tell you mine understanding of what I was told.
(…)
DEFENSE, LAWYER PANELLA – Who were his lawyers, excuse me?
WITNESS GREGO – In this case it was Studio Gianni Origoni Grippo. We have carried out this type of operation in the United States, England, etc., etc., they have already been scrutinized by the supervisory authorities of other countries, so it is presumable that they are certainly in compliance with the legal constraints in Italy too, but since it has never happened they wanted that my lawyers confirmed that there were no particularities in Italy that I was not aware of. I remember that they obviously did some studies, studies to try to interpret the law, the substance of what was told to me by the lawyer Gianni Origoni was that certainly these types of operations are legal and comply with the law exactly as they are in other countries , but given that it is still a great responsibility, there are risks, he advised asking Consob, informing it of the type of operation, which as far as I know they were not informed of the company that was the object of interest and I don’t think they even entered in the details of what we wanted to write or say. But make sure that this would actually be seen in a manner consistent with the interpretation of the law in Italy
DEFENSE, LAWYER PANELLA – Here she is…
WITNESS GREGO – Sorry, I’ll finish, then I’ll leave you…
DEFENSE, LAWYER PANELLA – Yes, yes, please.
WITNESS GREGO – So we sent our lawyers physically there, obviously I was in New York, so I couldn’t be present at the meeting and I was told that there was a discussion and that in practice it was said ‘We have a client, it’s a fund which specializes in this type of investigation, has found many suspects that point to probable wrongdoing on the market and intends to make the information found to the public after taking a short position on the stock.’ The answer, again based on hearsay from my lawyer, the substance was ‘Yes, that’s fine, because this position was taken in a manner consistent with the information that is then given by the market’. I remember well that it was said ‘It wouldn’t be good if this fund released negative opinions or negative data, but instead, following the possible collapse of the stock, it took a long position, then it could be manipulation because it means you do something and think about it. another one.
(…)
DEFENSE, LAWYER PANELLA – In the podcast you said ‘We first spoke to a person who was ex-Consob, before going to Consob’, who was this ex-Consob person?
WITNESS GREGO – So if I remember correctly, but again I suggest if it’s an important issue perhaps to also hear from the lawyers who went…
DEFENSE, LAWYER PANELLA – I ask you…
WITNESS GREGO – Yes, yes, I don’t know the name, maybe, and I say maybe because someone wrote it, always on this usual chat that I watch religiously, obviously, there was a name written there, Staderini if I’m not mistaken .
DEFENSE, LAWYER PANELLA – Staderini?
WITNESS GREGO – Staderini. But then I know the other name, because he is my trusted lawyer in Italy, his name is Emanuele Grippo. So as far as I know Grippo certainly went and I remember that he told me he went on a visit with a firm, with part of the firm, who had experience in Consob.
DEFENSE, LAWYER PANELLA – So Grippo and Staderini went?
WITNESS GREGO – They told me this.
(…)
DEFENSE, LAWYER PANELLA – Did the lawyers also inform these Consob interlocutors of the specific initiative that you were about to take? That is, the publication of a report to determine the decline or collapse of the price of the stock?
WITNESS GREGO – No, because your premise is not accurate, Lawyer, if you allow me. The purpose of the report was not to scuttle the stock…
(…)
DEFENSE, LAWYER PANELLA – However Grippo and Staderini went to Consob to anticipate that this report would be released?
WITNESS GREGO – Grippo and Staderini informed Consob of the fact that we intended to publish a substantially negative report on the stock, as far as I know (…)
Nothing illegal, apparently, based on the questionable – and for some incomplete – Italian regulations on short-term investments : but between the illegal and the ethically appropriate there is a large gray area which has allowed Gabriel Grego, and the offshore funds with which it collaborated, to earn – also thanks to the active professional collaboration of GOP – large sums of money, regardless of the fact that their aggressive financial strategy would have entirely destroyed the value of Bio-On, causing damage huge amounts not only to shareholders and institutional investors, but also to savers , unaware citizens who have lost their savings due to these unscrupulous financial speculations.
On this page , our video investigation entitled The Bio-On Case : Unfair Game has been online since 13 June 2024 : in the hope that no legal aggression will obtain censorship.
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