The Catania Court of Appeal ordered the release of all Mario Ciancio Sanfilippo's assets that had been ordered by the Court's Prevention Measures section. Among the motivations of the second-degree judges also the "lack of social danger" of the publisher and entrepreneur. Among the assets seized are also the companies that control the newspapers La Sicilia and Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno and the television stations Antenna Sicilia and Telecolor.

According to the Court of Appeal of Catania, the contested decree "must consequently be canceled" because, the judges write in the. 113 pages of the reasoned sentence, "the existence of some active and conscious contribution made by Ciancio Sanfilippo in favor of Cosa Nostra in Catania cannot be considered proven." Furthermore, "no form of social danger can be considered proven" nor "any disproportion between the income of legitimate origin of which the person in charge of his family could dispose of the liquidity used over time" has been ascertained and proven."