It is just past four in the afternoon on Thursday 26 June when, in courtroom C of the Vicenza tribunal, judge Antonella Crea begins reading the first-instance verdict against 15 defendants — former executives of the chemical company Miteni, based in Trissino (Vicenza) — accused of having contaminated the waters and soil of Padova, Vicenza and Verona with Pfas substances, chemical compounds dangerous to the environment and to human health.

"In the name of the Italian people, having regard to articles 533 and 535…". Just these two articles of the code of criminal procedure are enough to reduce the more than one hundred people present to tears. These are the articles that convict and confirm compensation for the more than 300 civil parties who have spent four years following the world's first criminal trial for Pfas substances — endocrine disruptors banned at the international level.

The defence's case and the convictions

Over these four years of mega-trial — the largest ever held in Italy for Pfas contamination — the defence's case rested on the absence of regulations limiting these compounds. According to the defence lawyers, furthermore, the contamination had been caused by historical releases dating back to the very earliest period of the company's production, when it was in the hands of the Marzotto family. The famous fashion house, in 1967, began manufacturing these substances by building facilities directly above the aquifer recharge zone that supplied 350,000 people, and close to the Poscola stream into which it discharged its waste.

Among the 15 defendants, however, there are no heirs of Count Marzotto — only executives of the large multinationals that, from the 1980s onwards, turned Miteni into the leading Pfas producer in Europe.

The names of Mitsubishi executives — the company that owned Miteni from 1988 to 2009 — appear first on the list of those convicted. Hosoda Maki, the multinational's business manager between 2002 and 2009, is sentenced to 11 years — a surprise given that public prosecutor Hans Roderich Blattner had requested acquittal. Naoyuki Kimura and Yuji Suetsune, both presidents of Miteni between 2003 and 2009, are sentenced to 16 years. According to the prosecution, these two executives were aware of the contamination and had full authority to stop it and report it to the public authorities — a report that was never made. Suetsune had also been the principal architect of the 2009 sale of Miteni's assets to the company Icig, a change of ownership carried out for the price of a single euro. According to the prosecution's reconstruction, the reason for this fire sale was knowledge of the pollution, documented in dossiers produced by the environmental consultancy Erm at Suetsune's own behest.

The fourth Japanese executive, Kenji Ito, was acquitted.

Even harsher sentences were handed down to the successors of the Japanese management. For the four executives of the Luxembourg fund International Chemical Investors Group (Icig), the jury confirmed criminal intent and imposed sentences of 17 years' imprisonment on Hans Georg Achim Riemann, Patrick Schnitzer and Luigi Guarracino. The latter, chief executive of Miteni from 2009 to 2015, is now facing his third trial for environmental disaster. Acquitted as an Ausimont executive in Abruzzo over what were Italy's largest landfill sites in 2007, he was convicted in the Solvay trial in 2019. Guarracino had previously been an executive at Ausimont and then at the multinational Solvay, which in 2002 had acquired all of Ausimont's plants. His colleague at Ausimont until 2002 was Brian McGlynn, who subsequently became a Miteni executive from 2007 to 2015. For McGlynn, the Vicenza jury handed down the harshest sentence of the entire trial: 17 years and 6 months. The prosecution demonstrated that McGlynn had been aware of the contamination and had moved from the Japanese to the Luxembourg management without resolving the environmental situation.

The Dutch national Alexander Nicolaas Smit, who headed Miteni from 2009 to 2012, is sentenced to 16 years, Martin Leitgeb to four years and six months, and Antonio Alfredo Nardone to six years and four months.

Greenpeace Italia @Greenpeace_ITA

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Contaminazione #Pfas in Veneto: abbiamo indagato su #Miteni, l'azienda ritenuta responsabile dell'inquinamento ➜ goo.gl/HrdbFy

♥ 26 22 set 2017 · Apri su X →

The Italians: convicted and acquitted

Antonio Alfredo Nardone was the last chief executive of Miteni, taking over from Guarracino in 2015 and steering the company to its bankruptcy in November 2018.

On the figure of Nardone, public prosecutor Blattner's closing argument in February 2025 dwells at particular length, stating that "with regard to the charges of bankruptcy and pollution, his conduct was certainly to be condemned in terms of the type of entrepreneurial management — one that was aware of the pollution and aware of a fabricated management picture at odds with reality". When he arrives at the plant, in 2015, the Pfas scandal has already been in the open for two years. During the trial it emerged that the annual financial statements, bearing his signature, had in 2016 included an entry for environmental expenditure. This entry was connected to obtaining an advance from the environmental insurance policy taken out during the Japanese management period and maintained by all subsequent administrators. Nardone had therefore obtained funds for an initial securing of the site — funds that were never spent.

After Miteni's bankruptcy in 2018 — for which the jury sentenced Miteni Spa Fallimento to pay €125,000 in compensation — Nardone opens the limited liability company Anasco, with offices in Milan and Vicenza. Its purpose is to act as an intermediary for the sale of Miteni's assets to the company Viva Life Sciences, a consortium of Indian industrial firms belonging to the Laxmi multinational. Between 2019 and 2022, in the midst of the investigation and trial, Nardone earns one and a half million euros in this capacity.

Anasco srl is wound up in December 2022, when the last container carrying Miteni's equipment leaves the port of Trieste bound for India.

Anasco, however, was reborn in March 2024, again with Nardone as director and in the role of industrial consultant for the buying and selling of chemical companies. His team also includes Davide Drusian, an engineer from Trissino. And one convicted to two years and eight months in the Miteni trial.

Between 2007 and 2018, Davide Drusian served as Miteni's attorney with environmental responsibilities. He was in charge of managing the hydraulic barrier, installed in 2005 to contain the spread of contamination beneath the site, and of the other measures designed to protect the surrounding environment. In February, the public prosecutor requested his acquittal, citing Drusian's total dependence on decisions made by senior management — he could not act on his own. But the jury convicted him to two years and eight months, along with a financial damages claim. Drusian is the only local manager — born in the area and active at Miteni for decades — to be convicted. Mario Mistrorigo, Mauro Cognolato and Davide Fabris are acquitted.

A request made by the Prosecution that had left both civil party lawyers and several defence attorneys taken aback. During the trial, documents had emerged concerning the actions of these technicians that demonstrated full awareness of the risks associated with PFAS, both for the environment and for the health of workers.

Mario Mistrorigo, Miteni's attorney with environmental delegation from 1996 to 2010, was the first Miteni technician to attend international meetings of the Apme association, established by chemical manufacturers with the aim of lobbying institutions.

Mario Fabris, Miteni's technical director between 2005 and 2009, was the recipient of dossiers drawn up by the environmental consultancy firm Erm, which revealed the presence of PFAS in the groundwater beneath the site at extremely high levels. Fabris was advised, via email, to trigger a self-report for contamination by unregulated substances. No self-report would be filed until 2013.

Who receives compensation and who doesn't, including the workers

After the list of those convicted and their sentences, at 4:50 pm Judge Crea began reading out the civil parties entitled to compensation. Many of them had arrived at nine in the morning, unfurling the now-famous banners outside the courthouse. All the key figures of the No Pfas movement were there: doctor Vincenzo Cordiano, who in 2013 reported the health damage at the risk of his career; Piergiorgio Boscagin from Legambiente, who also in 2013 was the first to speak of food contamination from PFAS; Donata Albiero, who for ten years has been going into schools to raise a generation free from PFAS; Maria Chiara Rodeghiero, who as part of Medicina Democratica began raising awareness from the outset about health risks for workers. Alberto Peruffo, activist and organiser of the first demonstrations in 2016, sat waiting for hours. And then dozens of Mamme No Pfas, who since 2017 have become tireless partisan relay runners in this long struggle for justice.

Standing apart, leaning against the wall, was the silent protagonist of this trial: Manuel Tagliaferri. The marshal of the Carabinieri's Ecological Operations Unit in Treviso spent three years conducting the investigation single-handedly, ultimately uncovering documents that were crucial in establishing the defendants' criminal intent. A reference figure for everyone — a confirmation that the State is present.

The compensation awards decided by the jury start at 15,000 euros, the standard figure under the Italian penal code for risk of falling ill (Metus), for individuals who have PFAS in their blood. These are followed by the Ministry of the Environment, which receives the highest sum (58 million euros), water utility managers who have been obliged to filter water since 2013 (500,000 euros), affected municipalities (80,000 euros each), environmental and health associations (25,000 euros), and public bodies such as the Province of Vicenza, the Region, the health agency and the environmental agency (800,000 euros).

Tgr Rai Veneto @TgrRaiVeneto

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At 5:01 pm, Judge Crea closed the proceedings and a long, loud round of applause broke out, giving way to embraces and chants outside the courtroom. It was the sound of life reclaiming its space after five years of quiet waiting.

Yet silence will remain for the 27 former Miteni workers who had also joined as civil parties, but were left without any compensation. Despite the trial having revealed that the convicted managers were aware of the health risks — studied by doctor Giovanni Costa — none of them were ordered to pay damages to the workers.

Within 90 days, the reasoning behind the verdict will be published, and Cgil — which has already secured a civil ruling regarding the death of a former Miteni worker who died due to PFAS exposure — will decide how to protect these victims.

A verdict useful for a future without PFAS

While Vicenza obtains justice, Piedmont sees the preliminary hearing in the criminal trial against Solvay postponed. Solvay stands accused of having contaminated the Alessandria area with PFAS produced by Miteni, where Italy's only plant manufacturing these compounds is located. The contamination in Piedmont occurs not thro