ITALY Law and Practice Contributed by: Alessandro Pistochini, Francesca Lazzeri, Andrea Gaudio and Guido Stampanoni Bassi, Pistochini Avvocati Studio Legale
3. Scope of Application 3.1 Limitation Period
Crimes under both Article 353 and Article 353-bis of the ICC have been included in the list of predicate offences for corporate criminal liability pursuant to Law No 231/2001 (amendment enacted by Law No 137/2023). 2.5 Intermediaries Some of the specific offences against the public administration (ie, Articles 317, 318, 319 and 319-qua - ter of the ICC) provide for the liability of a public offi - cial, both in the event that the act is committed by them and in the event that an advantage or money (as forms of payment for the performance or omission of a due or undue act, or merely as a result of the role the public official holds) is received by a third party. Furthermore, all the above-mentioned offences may hypothetically be committed through an intermedi - ary: indeed, the criminal justice system has a general rule, set forth in Article 110 of the ICC, according to which any person who participates in the commission of a crime (through conscious behaviour and causally linked to the fact) is liable for it. In this way, any third party who acts together with the agent is equally liable for the crime committed. 2.6 Lobbyists Italian legislation does not provide for a uniform regu - lation of lobbying activities. However, such activities have been subject to multiple initiatives at both the national and regional level through the issuing of reg - ulatory acts (eg, Toscana Regional Law No 5/2002, Molise Regional Law No 24/2004, Lombardia Regional Law No 17/2016; the Ministry for Economic Develop - ment and Ministry of Labour and Social Policy Direc - tive of 24 September 2018; and Ministry of Ecologi - cal Transition Decree No 258 of 1 August 2018). It is worth noting that, in 2016, the Chamber of Deputies approved the Code of Conduct for Deputies and the Regulation of Interest Representation Activities, which provided for the introduction of a register of entities that engage in professional interest representation activities before the deputies. Regarding the regulation of lobbyists and the Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) recommendations on this matter, see 9.1 Assessment of the Applicable Enforced Legislation .
As a general rule, under Italian criminal law, any crime is extinguished after a period corresponding to the maximum prison term provided for each offence and, in any case, after a period of not less than six years, starting from the day the offence is committed (Article 157 of the ICC). According to Articles 159, 160 and 161 of the ICC, the limitation period can be suspended or interrupted by one of the procedural acts specifically determined by law (eg, a request for committal to trial). In any event, the statute of limitations may not be extended by more than one fourth of its maximum term. It may be longer for corruption crimes under Articles 318, 319, 319-ter, 319-quater, 320, 321 and 322-bis of the ICC. The statute of limitations was widely amended by Law No 3/2019 (the so-called Bonafede Reform), which introduced a “freezing clause” for the statute of limi - tations after the first-instance judgment for all crimes committed from 1 January 2020 (meaning that, for these crimes, the limitation period ends with the issue of the first-instance verdict). This new clause was recently confirmed by Legisla - tive Decree No 150/2022 (the Cartabia Reform), which also sets maximum time limits for appeal proceedings and for proceedings before the Supreme Court with regard to all crimes committed from 1 January 2020. The limits are: • two years (extensible for one further year in the event of a particularly complex trail) for appeal proceedings; and • one year (extensible for a further six months in the event of a particularly complex trial) for proceed - ings before the Supreme Court. Both time limits run for 90 days after the deadline for filing the grounds of the judgment. After these maximum time limits have passed, crimi - nal action is time-barred, and the trial is extinguished (Article 344-bis of the Criminal Procedure Code).
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