Fighting Corruption

Whether or not AmTrust proves its case, Italy continues to fight an uphill battle against graft despite a beefed-up anti-corruption law passed in 2012.

"There is still a need to catch up with the Anglo-Saxon countries," said Paolo Boccardelli, a dean at LUISS Business School in Rome, while praising Italy for being on the right path.

Somma founded Naples-based Trust Risk Group Spa in 2010, becoming one of AmTrust’s first insurance brokers in Italy. In early 2011, Somma and AmTrust CEO Barry Zyskind struck an exclusive deal under which Trust Risk would collect and remit premiums on policies underwritten by AmTrust for a commission, the suit says. Ties grew deep, with the Italian attending meetings in New York and traveling on AmTrust’s corporate jet, it adds.

But by 2013, according to the suit, Somma was planning to compete with AmTrust and tried to poach two employees. He enlisted his daughter’s boyfriend, Attilio Schettino, to work as an analyst at AmTrust’s London office in what AmTrust says was a bid to steal propriety data.

Downloaded Secret Data

In January 2014, Schettino allegedly downloaded secret data about AmTrust’s policies and claims to his personal cloud-based storage account. Later that year, he copied a database of malpractice claims from his AmTrust laptop onto his personal computer, according to the complaint. AmTrust said it detected the breach and had Schettino walked off the premises.

Schettino, who isn’t named in the complaint, said in a phone call that the claims are unfounded.

AmTrust parted ways with Trust Risk and says Somma concocted a bogus excuse to seize 50 million euros in premiums.

In Nov. 2014, the Italian Criminal Court froze most of Trust Risk’s bank accounts after finding Somma misappropriated those premiums -- a decision upheld on appeal. Italy’s insurance regulator then expelled Somma as a broker.