ITALY Law and Practice Contributed by: Renato Fiumalbi, Simone Barnaba, Alessandra Lucchini and Valeria Daloiso, Eversheds Sutherland
2.5 Types of Costs Considered Under Third-Party Funding A third-party funder will generally consider fund- ing legal costs, experts’ fees and court fees. 2.6 Contingency Fees Contingency fees, in particular fees determined as a percentage of the recovery amount, are not permitted. Success fees are permitted provided that they are a minor component of the total fees. 2.7 Time Limit for Obtaining Third-Party Funding Third-party funding is not regulated and there- fore there is no time limit by when a party to the litigation should obtain third-party funding. 3. Initiating a Lawsuit 3.1 Rules on Pre-action Conduct Parties are generally not required to take any pre-action steps. However, in certain cases, the plaintiff is required to attempt mediation or negotiation assisted by lawyers. In particular: • mediation is compulsory before initiating proceedings when the dispute relates to cer- tain specific matters such as, among others, insurance, banking and financial contracts; and • negotiation assisted by lawyers is compulsory before initiating proceedings for small claims (not exceeding EUR50,000).
The only laws that deal with litigation funding are: • Recommendation of the European Com- mission of 11 June 2013, which prohibits influencing the procedural decisions of the plaintiff (but this recommendation only deals with class actions for the violation of EU rules); and • the Italian Code of Conduct for Lawyers, which does not expressly regulate litigation funding, but some of the rules of this code may be at odds with the functioning of litiga- tion funding. The issue of validity and enforceability of agree- ments on third-party litigation funding under Ital- ian law is still under discussion. An obligation to disclose litigation funding is provided in the rules of certain arbitration insti- tutions. 2.2 Third-Party Funding: Lawsuits Third-party funding is not regulated and there- fore there are no restrictions as to the type of lawsuits available for this type of funding. 2.3 Third-Party Funding for Plaintiff and Defendant Third-party funding is not regulated and there- fore there are no restrictions as to the party that can receive the funding (although in practice it is generally the plaintiff). 2.4 Minimum and Maximum Amounts of Third-Party Funding Third-party funding is not regulated and there- fore there is no minimum or maximum amount a third-party funder can fund.
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