MILAN (Reuters) – Italy’s tax police raided the offices of state railway Ferrovie dello Stato (FS) and Generali <GASI.MI> to gather documents in a probe related to the awarding of contracts to the Italian insurer, a document seen by Reuters on Friday showed.
A source close to the probe said Wednesday’s raid was part of an investigation Rome prosecutors are carrying out into whether Generali was awarded contracts in return for generous insurance policies granted to a series of top FS managers.
The document was a request by the prosecutors to hand over information related to their investigation.
A spokesman for Generali confirmed Italian tax police asked the insurer’s Italian unit to provide documents related to FS and said the company had cooperated fully.
He said Generali was awarded the insurance contracts through a European public tender under current regulations and in line with market practice.
The company would defend itself “against any untrue reconstructions that are detrimental to its reputation and honorability,” he said.
FS had no immediate comment.
Among the documents seized was an audit by PwC, seen in part by Reuters, showing that of the more than 550 million euros ($652 million) in insurance premiums paid by FS in the period 2011-2019 Generali won more than 89%.
The audit also showed that from a sample of around 600 injury insurance claims with Generali in the period 1998-2017 by FS managers, 66 files were missing.
PwC declined to comment.
The source said there were people under investigation but declined to say how many or what the accusations against them were.
(Reporting by Domenico Lusi, additional reporting by Stefano Bernabei and Gianluca Semeraro; writing by Stephen Jewkes; editing by Giselda Vagnoni, Mark Potter and David Evans)
