PRESS RELEASE

LEGALITY RATINGS: 1,077 APPLICATIONS PRESENTED TO THE ITALIAN ANTITRUST AUTHORITY IN THE FIRST NINE MONTHS OF 2015

A total of 1,077 applications were submitted by various companies in the first nine months of the year to obtain the Legality Rating that is issued by law by the Italian Antitrust Authority. From 83 applications during last January, the applications went up to 174 in September. Closed cases amounted to 963 while the others are still undergoing checks and investigations.

In particular, Rating awards totalled 778 (equivalent to 81%), against 43 refusals (4.4%) and four revocations (.04%). For the rest, there were 16 confirmations (1.6%), 10 higher scores (1.0%) and 85 applications that were archived (8.8%).

Approved by Parliament in 2012, the Legality Rating is the “reward” instrument that was entrusted to the Italian Antitrust Authority by means of which to assign points, from one to three “small stars”, to honest businesses with an annual turnover in excess of €2.0 million and that comply with a set of legal requirements. In order to obtain a “small star”, the owner of the company and the other directors should not have previous criminal or tax infringements. Besides not being sentenced in the previous two years for antitrust offences, the company must make its payments and financial transactions that are over €1,000 exclusively by means of traceable methods. In order to obtain a higher score, the Rules list six other requirements: two “small stars” if half of these requirements are met, three “small stars” if all these requirements are observed.

In a Rating assigned by the Italian Antitrust Authority, according to law, “consideration is given to the granting of loans by the public administration, as well as access to bank credit”. Under the same law, “credit institutions that fail to take into account the rating given in the granting of loans to enterprises are required to send to the Banca d'Italia a detailed report on the reasons behind the decision taken”.

A complete and updated list of companies that have been awarded a Legality Rating is published on this website (http://www.agcm.it/rating-di-legalita/elenco.html).

Rome, 5 October 2015