ITALY Trends and Developments Contributed by: Enrico Maria Mancuso, Federico Bracalente, Marco Accorroni and Marco Mariotti, Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer LLP
• concealment. II) Minimum and maximum penalties
at least some member states. In addition, the Directive provides for corporate fines of up to 5% of world - wide annual turnover or, alternatively, fixed maximum amounts of up to EUR40 million for the most serious offences. The Directive expressly recognises a num - ber of mitigating factors that may support reduced sanctions for legal entities, including the implemen - tation of effective internal controls and compliance programmes before or after the misconduct, volun - tary disclosure upon discovery of the offence and co- operation with the investigating authorities. VI) Limitation periods The act calls for minimum limitation periods, which must be sufficient to allow effective investigation, prosecution and enforcement following the offence. VII) Amendment of the PIF Directive (Directive (EU) 2017/1371) The Directive aligns the financial interests’ protection framework with the new minimum standards on penal - ties and limitation periods. Abolition of the abuse of office offence and reform of the trading in influence offence The abuse of office offence ( abuso d ’ ufficio , pursuant to Article 323 ICC) used to criminalise public officials who, in the exercise of their functions, intentionally breached a specific rule of law or failed to abstain in the presence of an interest conflict, thereby procuring an unjust advantage or causing an unjust harm. In July 2024, the offence was abrogated with Law No 114 of 9 August 2024. The grounds for reform were: • empirical – conviction rates for this offence were strikingly low in comparison to the number of investigations, with the vast majority of proceed - ings ending in acquittal or dismissal; and • structural – the provision allegedly generated pervasive “fear of the signature” among public officials, particularly at local government and pro - curement level, where administrators delayed or avoided decisions to minimise exposure to criminal investigation.
The Directive requires effective, proportionate and dissuasive sanctions, with maximum imprisonment terms of at least five years for the most serious cor - ruption offences and at least three years for less seri - ous offences. III) Prevention obligations Member states must: • adopt and publish national anti-corruption strate - gies developed in consultation with civil society; • establish independent specialised anti-corruption bodies; and • publish annual comparable data on corruption enforcement. The Directive further requires member states to intro - duce rules on the declaration and management of conflicts of interest in the public sector, transpar - ency in the financing of political parties and electoral candidates, asset declarations by public officials and The Directive reinforces co-operation between nation - al authorities and EU bodies including the European Anti-Fraud Office ( Office européen de lutte antifraude – OLAF), the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO), Europol and the European Union Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation (Eurojust), building on and extending existing frameworks. V) Corporate liability The Directive introduces a type of corporate liability under which a legal person may be held responsible for a corruption offence committed for its benefit by a person in a leading position, or by any member of the organisation acting under another subject’s authority. This represents a significant extension of corporate liability beyond the classical principal-agent model in “revolving door” disclosures. IV) Cross-border co-operation
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