The case is about Exor, the holding company of the Italian Agnelli family, headed by John Elkann, the fifth-generation descendant of the Fiat founder Giovanni Agnelli (1866-1945). Behind the success story is a two-decades long dispute that has pitted John Elkann, along with his two siblings, against their own mother.

In December 2023, contaminated soil weighing two million tons began moving downhill at an old clay pit in the Randers Municipality in East Jutland, Denmark. It was owned by relative newcomer to the area, a waste management firm called Nordic Waste, part of a family-owned holding in Denmark called United Shipping & Trading Company (USTC).