Leaked records show Bernard de Laguiche stashed Solvay shares in offshore accounts as the company faced water contamination claims in Italy and the US a lab analyst named Pietro Mancini descended into the basement of an aging chemical factory in the northern Italian town of Spinetta Marengo where he discovered something curious: a coating of yellow dust on the walls and floor he found sludge — also yellowish — oozing from a crack in a baseboard A test revealed that the substance was brimming with hexavalent chromium When Mancini complained about the health threat to workers his plant manager and his lab chief downplayed the risks “They told me not to worry … that it wasn’t my business,” he said the Italian plant produced all manner of toxic products including synthetic dyes and the pesticide DDT Harmful chemicals involved in production were buried on the site and leaked into the groundwater The plant later began using fluorinated compounds — also toxic — to make heat-resistant plastics and nonstick and water-repellent coatings for cookware and fabrics promised that it would clean the site and prevent leaks Company managers working under the architect of the acquisition a senior Solvay executive named Bernard de Laguiche were supposed to oversee the operation and report on its progress to Italian authorities But the cleanup and repairs lagged. Rather than disclose problems to authorities, company employees and contractors submitted reports that minimized the pollution and its potential harm, according to witness testimony as well as documents seized by Italian investigators and later reviewed by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists almost three years after Mancini’s storeroom discovery environmental inspectors found hexavalent chromium at more than 40 times the legal limit in wells near the plant Local authorities declared a public health emergency Italian prosecutors eventually brought criminal charges against more than two dozen people accusing them of intentionally poisoning the groundwater and failing to clean up the site He had promoted the purchase of the struggling plant and others in Europe and the U.S intending for Solvay to compete globally with industry leader DuPont and its famed Teflon product The plant acquisitions had been a success for his company de Laguiche and his immediate family moved assets worth more than $50 million into trusts in Singapore and New Zealand with the help of a prominent offshore service provider and Swiss advisors The documents, known as the Pandora Papers were leaked to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and shared with hundreds of news agencies They reveal a vast exodus of money into tax havens by the wealthy and powerful beyond the reach of tax collectors and law enforcement authorities and unprecedented detail about the white collar professionals who help them do it The roster of people directing their money into offshore companies and trusts, the records show, includes prominent executives of chemical companies accused of major violations of environmental laws in countries including India and Russia It’s the middle class and the poor who are paying for everything because the wealthy have found a way not to pay their fair share the hidden wealth included millions of dollars worth of shares in Solvay which owns chemical plants with long-standing pollution problems The records show that some of their assets were shifted from Switzerland which was improving its transparency standards prompting financial advisors to recommend more secretive locales dozens of Solvay workers and people living near Solvay facilities have sued the company over water and soil pollution the loss of farmland and a range of maladies including mesothelioma the company has paid at least $74 million in court awards for environmental violations The company said it has spent more than $55 million to clean contaminated areas globally “It’s the middle class and the poor who are paying for everything because the wealthy have found a way not to pay their fair share,” said Eric Kades a professor specializing in trusts and wealth inequality at William & Mary Law School He declined to comment on the legal case and the management of his family’s assets but said he didn’t move wealth offshore in response to the Italian investigation or to avoid taxes “I have always managed my family assets in good faith and have met all reporting and other obligations vis-à-vis tax authorities while strictly complying to the Solvay dealing code,” he wrote in an email to ICIJ The lab and the storeroom of the Italian factory were closed after Mancini filed an official complaint with local health authorities He sued and settled with Solvay for an undisclosed amount doctors removed a cancerous tumor from his right kidney Solvay said Mancini was fired “for just cause” without providing further details Solvay is “committed to maintaining the highest standards of safe and sustainable operations” and that it “has taken important remedial actions over many years consistent with [its] standards and environmental commitments,” the company said in a letter “No falsification or minimisation of the extent of the contamination have ever taken place on Solvay’s side (either by its plant personnel or external consultants).” Publicly traded on the Paris and Brussels stock exchanges Solvay is one of the world’s largest chemicals and plastics producers with 110 industrial sites in 64 countries and 2020 sales of $11 billion Its products include high-strength plastics for spinal implants and airplanes The company traces its roots to two enterprising Belgian brothers science enthusiasts and self-taught industrialists who in 1863 patented a way to process soda ash a compound used to make glass and soap and to bleach fabrics and paper the company prized family ties and discretion the Solvay family formed a tightly-welded ‘clan,’” an official company history found among the Pandora Papers declares This history cites an early family motto: “To live happy a Belgium-registered holding company that remains in control today as Solvay’s largest shareholder More than 2,300 descendants of the Solvay brothers and their original collaborators own shares in Solvac now in its sixth generation of family control He was educated at top business schools in Switzerland and Brazil and holds French and Brazilian citizenship De Laguiche went to work for Solvay in 1987 A 2013 photo in his Brussels office shows him next to a black-and-white portrait of his great-great grandfather he has downplayed the role of family ties in his success very focused on effort and meritocracy,” he said in a profile by a trade publication which had named him Belgium’s chief financial officer of the year “The family side played a very little role in my beginnings.” A career milestone came in 2000 when de Laguiche was put in charge of a $1.2 billion deal to buy Ausimont the struggling Italian owner of the Spinetta Marengo chemical plant and seven others the deal expanded Solvay’s portfolio to include a type of synthetic rubber a surface treatment to make glass and ceramics oil- and water-repellent positioning the company to compete directly with DuPont and other chemical giants “This is the most important investment in the history of Solvay,” de Laguiche said in a news release celebrating the closing of the deal Solvay also acquired the plants’ many problems A brick wall divides the Spinetta Marengo plant from the residential neighborhoods of the town of about 6,000 best known as the site of one of Napoleon’s most notable victories Dozens of trucks crisscross the narrow streets A constant humming of plant machinery is overlaid several times a day with the toll of church bells The plant has been both a blessing and a menace It has brought jobs and steady paychecks to generations of workers acid rain caused by the plant’s former operations killed vegetation and corroded car bodies at a local dealership A 2016 study by the regional environmental protection agency found that plant workers had an increased risk of dying of lung cancer and other ailments and that exposure to toxic chemicals Starting shortly after Solvay acquired the plant in 2001 de Laguiche traveled to regular meetings that included the heads of the Spinetta Marengo unit’s health and environmental safety department internal records seized by Italian investigators show The two executives in charge of negotiating the site’s cleanup with Italian environmental authorities reported to de Laguiche directly de Laguiche and the other executives also discussed a recently discovered problem: worker exposure to fluorinated compounds Also known as per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances these compounds belong to a class of more than 4,000 “forever” chemicals that don’t break down in the natural environment The chemicals were known to cause cancer in animals but little published research had been done on health effects in humans de Laguiche’s subordinates reported results of plant worker blood screenings for perfluorooctanoic acid began working at the plant in the mid-1990s to pay for his studies toward a degree in music therapy He stayed on for the good pay and a work schedule that allowed him to pursue his passion in his off-hours After a few years of producing PFOA polymer for nonstick pans Ferrarazzo moved to a research unit testing new fluorine-based products Ferrarazzo and Alessandrini said they had witnessed yellow sludge ooze from baseboards and evidence of exposure to other toxins Their unit’s ventilation system was inadequate causing them to breathe hazardous gases for years There is no uniform standard for what constitutes an unsafe level of PFOA in a person’s body But a test of Ferrarazzo’s blood showed a level 900 times a common safety benchmark The fear of losing their jobs imposed a code of silence among workers on the plant floor making it difficult for them to share their concerns one says to me: ‘What do I do if I lose my job?’ ” Ferrarazzo recalled “And I said: ‘And what do you do if you get cancer?’ ” whose test also showed an elevated toxin level They filed an official complaint with a local occupational safety agency alleging serious safety problems at the plant “We can no longer allow this multinational to put us and other Spinetta residents in such a condition that we have to trade our health for a job opportunity,” they wrote Alessandrini was later fired for what company lawyers called “obstructive behavior” and “insubordination.” He refused a transfer to another unit Alessandrini said he had good reason to fight the move: He feared he would be exposed to even higher levels of toxic chemicals in the new unit Ferrarazzo said he was asked to resign and received severance pay Solvay said the two workers were “terminated for just cause.” The company fixed the ventilation system after the workers’ complaint Alessandrini was diagnosed with trichoepithelioma His doctor told him that a possible cause was contact with chemicals at work Alessandrini struggled to find steady work he and his partner bought bottled water to drink but they “unfortunately” continued to use tap water for cooking and showering to save money Some PFAS have since been linked to human thyroid hormone disruption liver and kidney cancer and other deadly diseases Solvay no longer uses the type of PFAS that was found in the workers’ blood The company said that “long-term medical surveillance of employees indicates no correlation with pathological effects related to occupational exposure to PFAS.” It did not provide data to support the claim The plant’s pollution problems erupted into public view when an unrelated May 2008 inspection near a shuttered sugar factory found alarming levels of cancer-causing chemicals in several wells Authorities traced the source to the Solvay plant three miles away “We had the proven proof of the contamination and its scale,” Alberto Maffiotti head of the city’s environmental agency at the time Inspectors also discovered that dozens of nearby homes were using water drawn from a well directly beneath the Solvay plant for their vegetable gardens And the same well supplied water for coffee machines in the plant regularly used by Alessandrini and his co-worker Pietro Mancini an environmental crimes unit of the Italian carabinieri searched offices near Milan of Solvay Solexis They seized dozens of files found in the office basement One of the investigators’ searches revealed two sets of environmental records one for internal use and another to show authorities potentially damning data about arsenic found in the soil near the plant had been left out The investigators also found that Solvay employees routinely deleted findings about hazardous chemicals from lab analysis reports provided to inspectors prosecutors filed a groundbreaking criminal case current and former Solvay health and environmental safety officers in Italy and who had been promoted to be Solvay’s chief financial officer was accused of causing water and soil pollution in Spinetta Marengo and failing to clean up the contamination charges that carried a possible prison term of up to 18 years Solvay said in financial filings that it “vigorously contested” the allegations De Laguiche declined to comment on the case saying he does “not have authority” to answer questions on the matter as Italian authorities investigated Solvay’s handling of the cleanup de Laguiche and his family began to transfer some of their assets out of Europe and into several offshore entities financial advisers working for the family established a trust in New Zealand that would eventually receive Solvay shares valued at $11.3 million and $412,000 in Solvay dividends Bernard de Laguiche was one of the beneficiaries The documents don’t say who instructed the advisers to create the trust New Zealand offered anonymity and tax exemptions to foreigners who established trusts there The country didn’t require that trust managers ー often for-hire professionals and the only party listed in New Zealand’s official records ー to disclose a trust’s real owners or what it held two of de Laguiche’s sisters met with wealth managers and lawyers in Basel an offshore services specialist in Singapore the family’s French lawyer outlined how Asiaciti could help family members shift assets from a Swiss bank account to a Singapore-registered trust and Singapore bank “to avoid disclosure in Switzerland,” which was poised to make its notoriously secretive banking system more forthcoming Singapore at the time offered nonresidents confidentiality a full tax exemption for foreign-sourced income and protection from creditors Singapore had yet to adopt international standards set by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development that require countries to share tax information with foreign authorities (Singapore complied in 2014; New Zealand overhauled its trust laws in 2017.) A cousin and one of the family’s wealth advisers “noted that there is a desire to move forward quickly,” according to minutes of the meeting Asiaciti did not comment on any of its clients and said the firm complies with the laws of the jurisdictions where it operates de Laguiche transferred at least $57 million in Solvay stock and other assets to two new Singapore-registered trusts set up by Asiaciti One was named “Cagibi” after his Brazilian farm Each trust owned a company registered in the British Virgin Islands His wife and two children were beneficiaries A trust is a legal agreement designed to protect a person’s assets or reduce their tax burden A trust settlor transfers legal ownership of assets ー stocks often a professional firm such as Asiaciti The firm controls the assets on behalf of beneficiaries the original owner can retain a degree of control Because of the layer between actual owners and their assets trusts are sometimes used for tax evasion and money laundering De Laguiche told ICIJ that he did not set up the trusts “for tax purposes” and did not receive any tax benefit The BVI company controlled by his Cagibi Trust regularly took part in Solvay corporate shareholder meetings and voted on company decisions through a proxy which notify the company that someone other than the shareholder will be casting a ballot They identified the BVI firm as the shareholder De Laguiche said he reported his trades as required and European securities rules normally require executives to disclose their holdings and trading information to guard against insider trading and conflicts of interest  But European privacy law doesn’t allow the securities regulator in Belgium ー where Solvay is headquartered and listed ー to publish insider trading information from before 2016 No information is available about whether de Laguiche declared his ownership to Solvay or regulators Solvay said the company does “not comment on the personal finances of particular Solvay shareholders when the information is not publicly available.” The leaked records show that two other Solvay insiders also owned shell companies registered in secrecy jurisdictions.Guy de Selliers used a shell company incorporated in the British Virgin Islands to own a house in Dorset tax authorities and later transferred to a British company He added that he owns Solvac and Solvay shares through an offshore trust held inherited Solvay shares in a Singapore trust with a listed value of $10 million He said that his fiscal situation is “transparent” and that he complies with the tax regulations of Switzerland “Environment problems were of course discussed during assemblies,” said de Wangen “The board have always supported collectively the decisions presented by the executive committee to solve these problems.” de Laguiche and other shareholders celebrated a milestone: Solvay shares began trading in Paris on the prestigious pan-European exchange now known as Euronext a smiling de Laguiche celebrated the listing Proxy statements filed three months after the ceremony show that the anonymous companies indirectly controlled by de Laguiche and other members of his family held at least 387,027 Solvay shares through the offshore structures set up by Asiaciti moved to Spinetta Marengo to be with her partner and start a family in early 2007 The Solvay plant stood just a few hundred feet across the street from their house and Rossi saw it every time she opened the windows the lit-up factory looked like a postcard of the Manhattan skyline Rossi said she wasn’t aware of the “chromium emergency” declared by authorities shortly after Leone’s birth Then working long shifts at the city hospital she frequently left the boy with her in-laws nearby where he played in the garden as his grandfather tended lettuce and other vegetables Rossi realized that something was wrong with her son when he began to become ill with unusual frequency in the five months after his second birthday who had just given birth to a second child “Only later I realized the scale of the problem and how many workers and families had suffered.”  A 2019 study by local health authorities would later find that people living within two miles of the Spinetta Marengo plant were 30% more likely to develop leukemia Parkinson’s disease and stomach or kidney cancer than the population at large Children from the area were found to be more prone to neurological disease Rossi signed on to the Solvay criminal case under a provision of Italian law that allows civil plaintiffs in criminal cases local governments and the Italian environmental ministry Only later I realized the scale of the problem and how many workers and families had suffered The trial began in April 2013 at the Alessandria city courthouse in a World War II-era building with marble flooring some two dozen lawyers all looking perfect in their gowns.” The prosecutor argued that de Laguiche and the other top executives were “at their command post” from day one and knew De Laguiche’s lawyer said his client wasn’t to blame for contamination at the Italian plant and accused the prosecutor of trying to paint him falsely as “a criminal attacking public health.”  de Laguiche left Solvay’s management team in 2013 to “pursue some personal project” in Brazil ー where he owned the farm ー according to a report on a second-quarter conference call to discuss earnings with analysts De Laguiche was later named director in charge of “day-to-day management” of Solvac the family-controlled holding company that is Solvay’s largest shareholder His move to Brazil triggered changes in his offshore investment strategy an Asiaciti officer reported that de Laguiche’s tax adviser had deemed the Singapore trusts “disadvantageous” in Brazil Records prepared by the firm and addressed to Brazilian tax authorities show that at the time the trusts were closed de Laguiche kept his two BVI investment companies He moved their multimillion-dollar portfolio from a Singapore bank account to a Swiss bank account He then used one of those companies to pay a Swiss real estate firm and purchase a $7 million six-room vacation home with a large garden and two parking lots in La Punt a medieval village in the foothills of the Swiss Alps an Italian court found two of de Laguiche’s former executive subordinates and the Spinetta Marengo plant manager guilty of causing environmental damage Also convicted was a manager who worked for the plant’s previous owner and Solvay was ordered to pay about $430,000 in compensation to Spinetta Marengo residents and other civil parties the court concluded that there had been “no real or serious intervention” to remove the source of contamination and fix the leaks that had caused toxins to spread outside the site De Laguiche and two other executives were acquitted the burden of proof for a criminal conviction is high — and prosecutors hadn’t provided enough evidence to show that the executives knew about the coverup upheld the verdict against Solvay and its managers The company “should have adopted remedies to avert dangers to people and the environment,” the court said Solvay said that it has installed a system to contain and filter as much runoff as six Olympic swimming pools per day from the Spinetta Marengo plant The company also says it has spent more than $30 million on the cleanup and expects to spend millions more In an arbitration claim brought before an international commercial court Solvay said that the Italian company that sold it the factory misrepresented the extent of the site’s environmental conditions at the time of the sale Solvay said that it had won a $107 million award the swings and slides of a children’s playground along the Delaware River are dwarfed by the looming exhaust stacks of a refinery on one side and a Solvay plant the size of 10 soccer fields The plant was acquired in 2001 as part of the same deal brokered by de Laguiche that brought the Spinetta Marengo factory under Solvay control uses fluorinated compounds to produce an industrial resin used in paints and plastics.And researchers for the Delaware Riverkeeper Network uncovered government records documenting that the Solvay plant had been leaking PFAS and other toxic chemicals into the public water system and private wells for years After news coverage of the group’s findings created an uproar state officials warned that children less than a year old should drink only bottled water because the Paulsboro water supply was contaminated Though Solvay didn’t acknowledge responsibility the company distributed bottled water to local residents and began to study whether the plant was the source of the contamination three Paulsboro families sued the company in federal court in New Jersey alleging that it had put them “at an increased risk” of health problems Solvay agreed to settle for $2.7 million without admitting wrongdoing New Jersey regulators would later rule that Solvay and other area chemical producers were responsible for “the significant contamination” of the state’s natural resources and ordered Solvay to pay more than $3 million West Deptford Township closed two public wells near the plant after testing found PFAS levels that exceeded state guidelines can see part of a tower inside the Solvay plant She calls it the “Christmas tree” because of a red flag waving on top Quinn often checks the township drinking water reports They continue to show elevated levels of PFAS chemicals she decided to hire a plumber to install a $486 water filter meant to remove chemicals like PFAS “The filters are the only solution I have for myself at this point,” Quinn said Toxicological reports obtained by Consumer Reports last year indicate that Solvay had known since the early 2000s that some PFAS chemicals produced in Italy and used in New Jersey could pose health risks alleging that the company failed to clean up drinking water contamination linked to toxic compounds at the plant and hid health risks from the public A spokeswoman for Solvay Specialty Polymers USA LLC called the state’s allegations “inaccurate The company said it “is fully committed to completing its ongoing investigation and remediation of any PFAS impacts attributable to its facility.” The case is pending in state court in Gloucester County was unable to find steady work for years and the Solvay money from his court settlement didn’t last He has recurring nightmares about working in the contaminated lab He hasn’t completely recovered from his cancer surgery he pointed to a portrait of his late father His father taught him to expose wrongdoing without fearing the consequences “I would do it again,” Mancini said about filing a complaint about Solvay site conditions “I don’t have anybody’s health on my conscience.”  During the COVID-19 pandemic he cooked dinner for his wife while she was busy tending patients at a hospital Spinetta Marengo is where “they took 10 years of my life and a piece of me,” he said uniformed carabinieri and prosecutors arrived at Solvay’s Spinetta Marengo plant The company responded with a brochure distributed to Spinetta Marengo residents and plant workers “There is no evidence that today the Solvay plant poses a real danger to people’s health and the environment,” it said The police search was prompted by tests that found PFAS from the Solvay plant in water sources hundreds of miles away Solvay told ICIJ that the runoff was due to “exceptional and unpredictable weather events.” Update, Oct. 6, 2021: After responding to ICIJ’s questions for this story on Sept. 23, De Laguiche resigned from Solvay’s board of directors on Sept. 24 and from his post as Solvac managing director on Sept. 27. His resignation was first publicly reported on Oct. 6 by ICIJ partners De Tijd and Le Soir De Laguiche told the Belgian media outlets that the resignation is due to “personal reasons.” The local committees and Greenpeace have announced the results of tests carried out on 36 citizens who live near the chemical plant and paid for the tests out of their own pockets All samples certified the presence of harmful substances above the limits during a press conference organised in front of the Piedmontese city's prefecture by Greenpeace and local committees which have been fighting for years to ban perfluoroalkyl substances used to make everyday objects and considered harmful to humans and the environment The analyses involved 36 people living in the Spinetta Marengo area: in all of them the presence of pfas was found which doctors consider to be endocrine disrupters able to influence the change of hormones responsible for development "We ask President Alberto Cirio to come here and talk to us who should protect us?" said the citizens attending the conference who have been waiting almost four years for the analyses financed by the Region they decided to pay the 90 euros needed to find out whether the carcinogenic substances were present in their segue 'We hoped to fall back on the Region's biomonitoring announced in 2021,' denounces Mirella Benazzo we managed to get more adhesions than those collected by the regional sampling,' adds Giuseppe Ungherese 'which shows how concerned the people living near the chemical plant are The 36 blood samples were sent to Aachen University thanks to the coordination of Greenpeace Italy which has been following pfas contamination in Italy since 2016 first in Veneto and then in other northern regions PFAS, thousands of people in Piedmont drank contaminated water, says Greenpeace The examinations involved eight municipalities located within a ten-kilometre radius of the chemical plant with the values increasing significantly in the vicinity of the plant and appearing to be related to age and gender with adult males being the most affected by the bioaccumulation of pfas in the blood all samples showed traces of pfas in excess of the limits set by the US National academies of sciences (Nas) which indicate 2 nanograms per millilitre as the maximum threshold not to be exceeded even 20 nanograms per millilitre are exceeded a suburb that is home to Solvay's 130 hectares the maximum value of 32 nanograms per millilitre was reached of which 22.76 nanograms alone of the carcinogen pfoa a substance that belongs to the pfas group we asked citizens to explain what they know about pfas and the basic information about their families," Benazzo continues there is one case of cancer in each household It is also worrying that no general practitioner has ever spoken to his patients about pfas and the possible tests to be performed to understand whether or not the substances are present in the blood' The tests carried out in Alessandria follow a first round of analyses carried out in 2023 by the Belgian television network Rtfb the Alessandria committees involved activists from the Veneto region who have been exposed to the largest pfas contamination in Europe since 2013 and asked the Veneto's Doctors for the Environment Isde association for help The support of the Mamme No pfas and other activists was also important An IARC study confirms that PFOAs are carcinogenic and toxic and I lost my father and husband to cancer which I use to irrigate my vegetable garden analysed and high values of pfas were found What do I have to do to protect my health?" asked a resident who underwent the test the woman discovered that the pfas values in her blood exceeded 20 nanograms per millilitre The analysis conducted by the University of Aachen could not measure the two pfas produced and patented by Solvay Syensqo and its previous owner Ausimont: cC6O4 are only available for research in environmental matrices it is analysed worldwide by only two institutions: the Policlinico di Milano – which since 2021 has been Solvay's labour clinic and which finds up to 3 milligrams per litre in the blood of workers (3 million times higher than the 2 nanogram threshold) – and the Regione Piemonte which in the only biomonitoring carried out so far on farmers who feed on products grown near the chemical hub indicated an average of 15 micrograms per litre (a thousand times higher than the threshold) pfas produced by the Alessandria chemical plant reaches the blood of residents through food which is in turn contaminated by emissions from the plants' chimneys Amag Reti idriche – the company that manages the drinking water network of the eight Alessandria municipalities affected by these new blood tests – to lavialibera 's specific question on the presence of pfas in Spinetta Marengo's drinking water replied that 'the values are all below the limits that will come into force in January 2026' who until November 2023 had never found traces of pfas albeit with values below 100 nanograms per litre the threshold imposed by the new drinking water directive from 2026 InquinamentoPfas mafie e povertà: chi guadagna e chi si ribella nella Sicilia delle emergenze La tua donazione ci servirà a mantenere il sito accessibile a tutti Ogni sabato la raccolta degli articoli della settimana per non perdere neanche una notizia.  Ogni prima domenica del mese un approfondimento speciale per saperne di più e stupire gli amici al bar Ogni terza domenica del mese la rassegna stampa estera a cura di Libera Internazionale © LA VIA LIBERA SRL - IMPRESA SOCIALE 2025 - Tutti i diritti riservati Sede legale e operativa: corso Trapani 95 – 10141 Torino Codice Fiscale/Partita Iva 12186210014 Tel. 011/3841093 - +39 3668708979 - abbonamenti@lavialibera.it lavialibera.it è l'edizione digitale del bimestrale cartaceo Lavialibera 63 convertito con modificazioni nella legge 16 luglio 2012 n Per l'anno 2022 l'impresa sociale La Via Libera srl- editrice della pubblicazione cartacea e telematica - ha presentato domanda di accesso ai contributi pubblici all'editoria (legge 26 ottobre 2016 n Hai dimenticato la password?Clicca qui per richiedere una nuova password Non sei un utente registrato?Abbonati ora oppure crea gratuitamente il tuo account La tua donazione ci servirà a mantenere il sito accessibile a tutti $(document).ready(function() { $(".various").fancybox({ maxWidth : 800, maxHeight : 600, fitToView : false, width : '60%', height : '60%', autoSize : false, closeClick : false, openEffect : 'none', closeEffect : 'none' }); }); $.fancybox.defaults.hash = false; $(document).ready(function(e){cookie_informativa();});2025 - numero 32Terra bruciataCrisi idrica mafie e povertà: nella Sicilia delle eterne emergenze attori privati e criminali approfittano dei vuoti lasciati dalla politica Ma nascono anche nuove forme di partecipazione che tentano di affrontare questi problemi dal basso Analytical reference standards are not known for attracting intrigue and drama Standards—compounds of known purity and concentration—are pivotal to investigating pollution because they allow researchers to determine the levels of contaminants in water the specter of patent infringement lawsuits has prevented researchers from quantifying environmental contamination by a perfluorinated “forever chemical.” This complicated situation involves the Brussels-based chemical maker Solvay pollution by per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in Italy Solvay told the analytical standards firm Wellington Laboratories to cease making and selling a standard for C6O4 a chemical used as a processing aid for making commercial PFAS compounds which makes and uses C6O4 in Italy but does not sell it holds patents on the compound and its synthesis in several countries The use of patent infringement claims to take ACS’s Basic Package keeps you connected with C&EN and ACS $80 Regular Members & Society Affiliates ACS’s Standard Package lets you stay up to date with C&EN ACS’s Premium Package gives you full access to C&EN and everything the ACS Community has to offer the specter of patent infringement lawsuits has prevented researchers from quantifying environmental contamination by a perfluorinated “forever chemical.” This complicated situation involves the Brussels-based chemical maker Solvay, a Canadian analytical standards company, pollution by per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in Italy The use of patent infringement claims to take an analytical reference standard off the market is a new idea to the experts on patent law and reference standards consulted by C&EN Analytical chemists are concerned that the maneuver could have a chilling effect on efforts to trace the sources of pollution C6O4 is the nickname for a monocyclic perfluorinated ether It is a substitute for an older chemical in the PFAS group that was used for decades: the toxic and environmentally persistent perfluoro­octanoic acid (PFOA) Solvay registered C6O4 in 2011 under the European Union’s Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation, and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) law. In the registration documents, Solvay identifies the chemical as a production intermediate that isn’t intended for environmental release But even though C6O4 was supposed to remain within industrial processing equipment, officials from Italy’s Veneto region in 2019 found the compound in the Po, the country’s longest river the area that drains into the river includes part of Italy’s Piedmont region where a Solvay fluoropolymer plant operates in the town of Spinetta Marengo The river empties into the Adriatic Sea in Italy’s northeast In addition to the Solvay plant, landfills in the Piedmont region that accepted industrial waste are also contributing C6O4 to the Po River, says Sara Valsecchi, a researcher at the Italian National Research Council “We found significant concentrations of this compound in landfill leachates,” she says Solvay wasn’t the only company that registered C6O4 in the EU and an Italian court declared it bankrupt at the end of 2018 the Regional Agency for Environmental Prevention and Protection of Veneto learned that the facility accepted waste from Solvay The agency also discovered C6O4 in groundwater near the shuttered Miteni facility an area hydrologically separate from the Po River The lack of a chemical standard for C6O4 “will surely slow down or stop our investigations,” Valsecchi tells C&EN “This is an example of how patents are misused to prevent [government] authorities and scientists from detecting pollution and demonstrating risk” of new PFAS that are entering the environment Solvay asked Wellington to stop making a C6O4 analytical standard to ensure that any standard is actually the company’s patented molecule Solvay doesn’t know the origin of the standard that Wellington offered and never provided samples of C6O4 to Wellington Solvay also doesn’t want the compound—even in the small amount that makes up a reference standard—sold to other chemical makers “Solvay’s concern is about not enabling competitors to duplicate or develop a competitive product,” he explains in an email to C&EN “Solvay attempted to negotiate a license agreement with Wellington that would protect Solvay’s intellectual property from competitors,” Carroll says But Wellington “preferred to discontinue” sales of C6O4 standards In a Jan. 27 letter to its customers, Wellington says it learned in July 2020 that the sale of the C6O4 standard “constituted an infringement of Solvay’s patent rights.” “We were hoping to negotiate an arrangement with the patent holder that would facilitate the sale of this standard so that environmental analyses could continue; however we were unable to come to an agreement that would allow for uncensored access to the standard,” the letter says Wellington representatives shared with C&EN some information about the situation and patents in question but declined to discuss the situation in detail is a major provider of PFAS analytical standards as well as a supplier of raw materials to other standards companies Shutting down the sale of Wellington’s C6O4 standard may well make the standard unavailable for anyone other than Solvay says he can buy about half the more common PFAS from any number of open-market sources And Arpie says Wellington is also the only provider of isotope-labeled PFAS which enable several precise and sensitive analytical methods is that the market for C6O4 standards may be too small for Wellington or anyone else to risk a lawsuit from Solvay “That one compound over its lifetime would maybe make them $1 million,” Arpie says The legal situation is complex: a Belgian company claiming patent infringement against a Canadian company for providing standards that are currently most relevant to pollution in Italy with the patents in question registered in several countries but not Canada or Italy Wellington wouldn’t have infringed anything if the reference standard stayed within Canada a patent attorney at the intellectual property law firm Finnegan But if the standard crossed into one of the countries where Solvay holds patents Wellington would be exposed to legal action from Solvay Solvay’s Carroll tells C&EN that the company is in discussion with a laboratory—not Wellington—to generate a certified reference standard for C6O4 but there was no deal as of C&EN’s deadline a second struggle over the availability of standards for PFAS connected to Solvay is playing out in the US those chloroperfluoropolyether carboxylates fluorosurfactants used as substitutes for PFOA were made at the Solvay plant in Spinetta Marengo Solvay’s CEO announced in October that the company is phasing out fluorosurfactant processing aids at the West Deptford plant and will be in full production of new alternatives there by mid-2021 Then, in November, New Jersey filed a lawsuit against Solvay to stop the chloroperfluoropolyether carboxylate pollution It also asked Solvay to provide analytical standards for the PFAS used at the plant In an argument similar to the one Solvay made against Wellington the company claimed the identity of those compounds as trade secrets The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection is still seeking appropriate analytical standards for those compounds department spokesperson Larry Hajna tells C&EN Attorneys tell C&EN that researchers in the US may have some legal options if Solvay’s practice on analytical standards becomes more widespread but they would need the backing of the federal government Each legal approach has precedent in other corners of the intellectual property landscape but would says US law includes a provision known as section 1498 that gives the federal government access to a patented invention in a process akin to eminent domain The provision allows the government to contract with an outside US-based lab to make and use the invention on the government’s behalf without the patent holder’s consent The patent holder is able to sue only the government and courts have frequently limited judgments in such cases to a reasonable royalty would be for Congress to expand the Hatch-Waxman act That 1984 law created the generic-drug business as we know it by making it legal to prepare a molecule still under patent protection if it’s for the purpose of submitting regulatory data to the US Food and Drug Administration That law is how generic drugs can hit shelves almost immediately after a patent expires Expanding that “safe harbor” exemption to include submission of data to the EPA could allow the most critical public safety analyses to go forward without intellectual property concerns firms accused of patent infringement have successfully challenged the validity of the patent at issue The US Patent and Trademark Office has procedures for doing so that are less costly and complicated than a lawsuit would usually be Those legal routes could free up analytical reference standards for proprietary molecules but only if someone is willing to pursue them researchers will likely have to wait until the company releases a standard which Absolute Standards’ Arpie thinks is fair “My position is that while we’d like to get materials that are on patent We’re not entitled just because we can think of it and we think it’s right,” Arpie says “We’ve all agreed to a different construct called patent protection and it’s served our world community very well so far.” Sign up for C&EN's must-read weekly newsletter This article has been sent to the following recipient: Copyright © 2025 American Chemical Society Arkema is a global designer of materials and innovative solutions and is present in Italy with around 600 employees and 4 plants (Spinetta Marengo Arkema is committed to safety as a priority and to providing relevant information to the public in the event of an incident Arkema was set up in Italy in 1930 and for the last 12 years has operated in the country under the name Arkema sealants and organic peroxides represents the Group’s specialties in the country All Arkema Srl products are marketed in Europe Discover where our products are in your daily life Watch the video or download the booklet to see examples of everyday applications with Arkema products and materials Download the booklet A man holds a hat inside the Borsalino hat factory Borsalino’s prized felt hats are handmade by 80 workers in its Piemonte factory with original machinery that use hot water and steam to transform rabbit fur into highly prized felt dyed and molded by hand to create the latest styles A man piles felt hats inside Borsalino’s hat factory Hats are shown in a Borsalino store in downtown Milan If the traditional Italian hat-maker Borsalino was once synonymous with the fedora its new private equity owners want to imbue the brand with cachet that extends to couture sportswear and streetwear for women and Millennials -- without alienating its classic customers and the silhouette that helped shape the rough-and-tumble images of Robert Redford Steam is used to mould a fur hat in Borsalino’s hat factory A view of a label of Borsalino at its hat factory A woman works on hats inside the Borsalino hat factory A woman holds a pile of hats inside Borsalino’s hat factory Rabbit fur to be moulded into a hat sits on a table at Borsalino’s hat factory Its prized felt hats are handmade by 80 workers in its Piemonte factory A woman moulds a hat inside Borsalino’s hat factory A woman works on a hat in Borsalino’s hat factory A woman works on hats to be moulded in Borsalino’s hat factory A woman worker pushes a cart with hats in Borsalino’s hat factory A machine uses water to shape a fur hat in Borsalino’s fur factory A pile of hats is seen in Borsalino’s hat factory A hat is moulded by machinery inside the Borsalino hat factory A woman looks at hats in a Borsalino store in downtown Milan A woman tries a hat inside a Borsalino hat store in downtown Milan A woman shows a label inside the Borsalino hat factory in Spinetta Marengo The traditional Italian hat maker Borsalino whose fedora has defined the rough-and-tumble images of Robert Redford has a plan to appeal more to women and millennials by pushing into high-end fashion which has been rescued financially by a private equity fund underline the difficulties facing Italian companies — not only fashion brands — seeking scale to stay competitive and grow in the age of globalization targeting new demographics and expanding retail presence all require cash And even the best-laid business plan can be complicated by a company’s bad baggage was founded in the northwestern Italian city of Alessandria by Giuseppe Borsalino By the time the Swiss-Italian private equity firm Haeres Equita was approached about investing in 2015 the company had been mismanaged and bled dry by the previous owner “What surprised me at the time is that Borsalino was profitable,” said Philippe Camperio I thought there would be a much bigger company in terms of revenues The company was making 12 million euros ($13.5 million) in revenues with profits of between 600,000 euros and 800,000 euros But it had fallen out of many of the world’s big-name department stores supplying mostly hat-making shops and not keeping pace with fashion trends Camperio’s first step was to take over the historic factory and submit a business plan to bankruptcy court revenues increased 20 percent and profits doubled the business plan was rejected more than once as the courts sought better deals for creditors and false reports spread around the world that the maker of the Bogart fedora was no more “We have the intention of relaunching this brand.” which also owns the Fogal brand of Swiss hosiery is looking for other investments in Italian fashion if possible another “sleeping beauty like Borsalino,” Camperio said several fashion companies have turned to outside investors to expand Versace has been bought by Michael Kors’ Capri Holdings Limited as the cornerstone of a new fashion group Cavalli and Trussardi all recently did deals with private equity investors to get cash infusions Camperio expects a few possible targets to be up for sale soon as the owners who founded them in Italy’s postwar boom look to secure the companies’ future That can include handing the companies over to the family’s next generation or selling them to foreigners The marketing power for many of these brands is the Made in Italy tag viewed as a guarantee of quality in the fashion world Borsalino’s hats are handmade by 80 workers many of whom have worked at the factory for decades Giuseppe Borsalino’s original machinery uses hot water and steam to transform rabbit fur into highly prized felt that is then dyed and molded Camperio has brought in a team of fashion experts including former Gucci CEO Giacomo Santucci The expansion plan foresees selling more in the United States and Asia and developing new collections to appeal to younger generations and to women Borsalino’s new looks include corduroy baseball caps with the Borsalino logo prominently displayed The goal is to increase annual production from 150,000 hats to 500,000 in five years — still far from the 2 million Borsalino churned out every year during its postwar heyday “Borsalino should be the leader of the hat business,” Santucci said “The power of the brand is going to stay forever.” with insufficient means and inadequately supported soldiers (so much so that they were forced to loot the territory to feed themselves) Napoleon’s idea was to march on Milan (where the French entered in early June) and immediately seek a clash with the Austrians to cut their lines between Genoa and Milan the French managed to inflict a first defeat on the Austrians The clash took place near the Bormida River because it was a key area for communications: the French seemed destined for defeat but on the afternoon of June 14 the arrival of reinforcements led by General Louis Charles Desaix (who died during the battle struck by a bullet) enabled the French to launch an unexpected counterattack Today there are still many places that tell the story of the Battle of Marengo in and around Alexandria: the clash has entered into Napoleonic myth (so much so that it is considered Napoleon’s favorite battle) and can be retraced through numerous testimonies in the area a 19th-century residence in Spinetta Marengo multimedia materials and more to document the clash of June 14 The entrance to the museum is the "Pyramid," which commemorates Napoleonic events Napoleon returned to Alexandria to celebrate the battle before the world and the leader appeared before a crowd of dignitaries and generals in the same uniform he wore on June 14 five years earlier Napoleon wanted a great pyramid to be erected on the plain of Marengo along with the sacrifice of General Desaix and his men would eternally commemorate his victory: “Let it rise from stone to stone as on that of Egypt.” Its construction began immediately and work was in the home stretch but it was destroyed with the return of the Austrians to the area The City of Alexandria built a new cast-iron Pyramid in 2009 which has become a symbol of the museum and Napoleonic Alexandria A tour of the sites of the Battle of Marengo can begin at the bridge over the Bormida River rebuilt in the Napoleonic period over the Romanesque bridge built by Benedictine monks in the 14th century The Austrian army passed through here before the clash against the French army At the bridgehead stands the giant plane tree that tradition says was planted in 1800 by Napoleon to honor the approximately 2,000 soldiers who died on the day of the battle and the 10,000 wounded on both sides The plant is over 200 years old and about 40 meters tall (its foliage covers an area of about 400 square meters in spring-summer) The tree is owned by the City of Alexandria and protected by the local superintendency one of the most monumental in its historic center In 1804 it appears that Napoleon via stayed during his trip to be crowned emperor in Paris the palace is said to have hosted Napoleon’s nephew at the beginning of the Second War of Independence: in the same palace General François Certain de Canrobert had taken lodging with the General Staff of the French army that would support the Italians in the war against Austria the Citadel of Alexandria constitutes one of the grandest European monuments in the field of permanent fortification of the 18th century one of the few still standing and certainly one of the best preserved in Europe It is the only lowland fortress built by the Savoy family in the 18th century and is the only European fortress still set in its original environmental context after the triumphs of the Battle of Marengo and his ascension to the imperial throne of France decided to expand and restore the fortress and surround the city with new defenses and eight new fortifications in order to create a large logistical base intended to support the operations of the French army deployed in northern Italy urban development was planned in the built-up area of Marengo the location and effectiveness of the modern fortifications made the Citadel one of the most spectacular fortresses in the empire and the richest arsenal in all of Europe Napoleon wanted to make the Citadel a kind of “eastern gateway” to France In Alexandria you can also visit the Civic Museum located in a wing of the Palazzo Cuttica di Cassine (visit the Napoleonic rooms and admire the armchair of Empress Maria Luigia and art rooms with the collection of Giovanni Migliara and the frescoes of the Arthurian cycle) Other Napoleonic routes pass by Novi Ligure where the Napoleonic battle of 1799 was fought Napoleon Bonaparte’s command on June 14 from where the Marengo plain can be seen and which is depicted in prints of the time on the country road known as the "Red Road," so called because of the blood shed by the opposing cavalry that crossed it on the fateful June 14 Borsalino’s prized felt hats are handmade by 80 workers in its Piedmont factory steam and craftsmanship to transform rabbit fur into highly prized creations A new report by Greenpeace Italia denounces the presence of toxic compounds produced by Solvay Solexis also in the Turin area and other parts of Piedmont and not only those around Spinetta Marengo the Alessandria district where the multinational Solvay Solexis This is the conclusion of a new report by Greenpeace Italy which denounces the presence of perfluoroalkyl substances in drinking water in Piedmont While in the province of Alessandria there are high concentrations of PFOA (considered carcinogenic by the International Agency for Research on Cancer and whose production has been banned for 10 years) in the metropolitan area of Turin there are traces of the compound cC6O4 produced in Italy "exclusively" by Solvay Solexis which recently changed its name to Syensqo 125,000 Piedmontese drank carcinogenic substances over a long period of time without knowing that they were carcinogenic "It was thought that PFAS pollution in Italy only affected the Veneto or Alessandria regions," says Giuseppe Ungherese "areas where there were or still are industrial plants producing these dangerous molecules In recent months we have shown that the problem also affects many areas of Lombardy Today we are forced to denounce that even in Piedmont there are other areas where the problem is significant Greenpeace Italy has asked all the managers of Piedmont's drinking water networks and the health authorities (ASL) for access to the results of analyses carried out to detect PFAS in drinking water there are still no national limits for these substances which have been considered dangerous since 2001 Most managers and local health authorities have never looked for the compounds in drinking water even though Piedmont is home to Italy's only producer The data presented come mainly from two provinces: Alessandria and Turin Solvay Solexis has been discharging the effluent from its industrial collector into the Bormida river since acquiring the chemical centre in 2002 Solvay Solexis had already been warned in 2007 that its industrial effluent was releasing PFAS and damaging the environment The alarm had been raised by the European Union had identified the Po as the river with the highest level of PFAS pollution in Europe Professor Michael MacLachlan wrote an email to the company: “From our studies we believe that the most likely source of PFOA emissions into the river is your industry we urge you to investigate.” Solvay Solexis replied that other industries were discharging into the River Po and that there were no limits on these substances we have had to wait until 2021 to have parameters on discharge levels in Piedmont despite the fact that Arpa Piemonte (the regional authority on the environmental protection) started monitoring these compounds in 2008 together with the National Research Council (CNR) the body that discovered the largest PFAS contamination in Veneto in 2013 Thanks to the cooperation of the local health authority in Alessandria Greenpeace was able to re-establish the monitoring of drinking water in Alessandria If the chemical plant has had no impact in the area close to the production site has not spared several municipalities along the Scrivia river: Alzano Scrivia recorded a PFOA presence above the limit of 100 nanograms per litre set by the Istituto Superiore di Sanità (ISS) It is a pity that none of these municipalities has been contacted by the Arpa laboratory which was informed of the presence of cC6O4 in the drinking water network in June 2020 The municipality was contacted by ARPA and ASL and two days later it was decided to close the main well Greenpeace asks: how is it that in these five municipalities on the Scrivia ASL waited until 7 August 2023 (from November 2019) to change the supply point seven days after the NGO's request for data which can also be consulted via a map with yellow and green dots indicating the monitoring carried out over the years The water network manager for the province of Turin the Società metropolitana acque Torino (SMAT) provided the data obtained in 2023 (following research begun five years earlier) and its analysis shows that 14 municipalities tested positive for the compound cC6O4 it is possible to draw a kind of map that goes from Bardonecchia to Ivrea with values that reach 66 nanograms in Cintano As in the case of the five towns in the province of Alessandria where there was a lack of communication from the authorities no document sent by SMAT to the contaminated centres has been delivered to Greenpeace for these 14 municipalities the entry “PFAS sum” appeared on the SMAT website dedicated to the analysis of compounds monitored in drinking water as the operator has been producing data on PFAS since 2018 the year in which it involved the chemistry department of the University of Turin in the search for these emerging pollutants which were then found in several municipalities The province of Turin is already aware of cC6O4 after ARPA Piemonte found traces of the compound in the leachate of the Barricalla landfill in the municipality of Collegno tens of kilometres from the production centre of the multinational Solvay Solexis which has always denied selling PFAS to research centres and universities Contrary to the dossier on drinking water in Lombardy published in May 2002 with data supplied by the bodies involved in Piedmont Greenpeace has received negative replies from almost all the managers There are two reasons for this: on the one hand the entry into force of the limits for PFAS in water is not expected until January 2026 and the decision taken in 2019 to monitor only the Alessandria area In the 2019 health monitoring programme (Prisa) the region includes an appendix from ARPA Nord Ovest (Turin) which recommends that only the area affected by the actual contamination the administrations and local health authorities have avoided testing for carcinogenic compounds in Piedmont's drinking water for years Greenpeace carried out its own sampling in July 2023 indicated the presence of PFOS in the municipality of Galliate Inquinamento