PRESS RELEASE

HEARING OF PRESIDENT PITRUZZELLA AT THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES: “FAVOURABLE VIEW ON THE LEGISLATIVE DECREE THAT AMENDS THE PROVISIONS OF THE CONSOLIDATED TEXT ON BANKING AND FINANCE”

At a hearing before the House of Representatives’ Finance Commission, the president of the Antitrust Authority, Giovanni Pitruzzella, has expressed a favourable view on the legislative degree that assimilates the European Parliament’s directive on access to the activities of credit institutions and the precautionary supervision of   credit institutions and investment firms. The said legislative enactment amends and supplements various articles of the consolidated Banking Text (legislative decree no. 358 of 1 September 1993) and the consolidated Finance Text ((legislative decree no. 58 of 24 February 1998).

“The introduction of stricter requirements for equity and for undertaking managerial and decisional functions in companies operating within the credit sector – as stated by Pitruzzella at the beginning of his talk – is found to be escorted by further provisions, all of which seemingly aim at ensuring a better enforcement of rules that are meant to guarantee competence, correctness, transparence and legality in the credit sector”. According to the Competition and Market Guarantor Authority, “the same approach also seems to be shared by the limit on accumulation of functions on the part of bank representatives, so as to give effect to the principle in conformity of which they must devote adequate time to the implementation of their functions”. All of that, in the view of the Agcm (Competition and Market Guarantor Authority), might contribute to “setting up effective guarantees for the healthy and correct operation of financial markets”.

In his intervention, where he agreed with the choice made as part of the legislative decree’s overall scheme, the president of the Antitrust Authority moved on to highlight “the shift to a system where the addressee of sanctions is first of all the body to which the unlawful conduct is ascribable, and then, only subordinately, the company representative or the physical person responsible for the infringement”. He then added: “From the viewpoint of deterrence, moreover, it is no doubt worth appreciating the increase in the amount of sanctions capable of being inflicted both on the physical persons (company representatives) and, especially, on the companies”.

In that connection, Pitruzzella defined as “worthy of appreciation” even the fact that the renewed sanctioning system correlates the maximum penalty that might be legally imposed to a percentage (10%) of the turnover, in such a manner that the deterrent effect is brought into relation with the economic size of the company. In the scenario where the advantage gained by the author of the infringement exceeds the prescribed legal ceilings, the self-same decree (new paragraph 9 of article 144 of the consolidated Banking Text) envisages that the sanctions are increased “up to double the amount of the advantage gained, so long as the said amount is capable of being determined”.

The president of the Antitrust Authority concluded by passing a positive judgment on the amendments relating to the right of cross-questioning, through the possibility of disputing the debited sums and the chance offered to the interested parties to request a personal hearing, in compliance with the principles of “fair trial” and “levelled fields”. Analogously to what occurs in respect of the decisions by the Authority itself, the separation between competent investigating offices and competent decision-making offices represents – in Pitruzzella’s opinion – “a marked strengthening of the procedural guarantees established for the parties to the sanctioning proceedings” and “cannot therefore be judged other than positively”.

Rome, 19 March 2015