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Professional Biography

Marco Cerrato, partner of Maisto e Associati, is an Italian lawyer who assists corporate and individual clients on contentious and not contentious matters related to domestic and international tax law. He is retained by banks, family offices, trustees and individuals for generational planning, lifetime asset transfers and ownership structures, transfer of residence to/from Italy and taxation/structuring of art collections and philanthropic activities, having developed wide-spanning expertise in those areas. He holds an LLM in Tax from the London School of Economics and Political Science and is scientific co-director of the advanced training course on the Protection, Transmission and Management of Family Estates jointly organized by Step Italy and the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore. He acted as consultant to the Italian Government in 2015-2016 on various tax matters. Marco has been the Chair of STEP Italy in 2020-2023 and is currently Deputy Chair of STEP Europe.

What is your favorite restaurant to take a client or colleague to?

Langosteria in Milan

What is the best piece of advice you have ever received?

That the reward for those who work hard and work well is additional work. This is one of my father’s teaching, which I am trying to transfer to my three kids.

What was your first job?

I have always been working as a lawyer (and I am still here after thirty years!)

What is the book you recommend to everyone?

Any book by Parag Khanna.

What changes do you expect to see in your practice over the next year?

The progressive collapsing of those structures originally created for privacy reasons, but that are now becoming anachronistic due to the recent trends in the AML/tax legislations aimed at increasing transparency (lastly, the registries of beneficial ownership).