AGCM

PRESS RELEASE

MORE THAN ONE HUNDRED REQUESTS PER MONTH TO OBTAIN THE RATING OF LEGALITY

The requests to obtain the rating of legality by the Antitrust Authority continue to increase. In the first quarter of this year, there were 461, more than those received in all 2014 (415 in total). In detail, there were 83 registered in January, 133 in February, 144 in March and 101 in April, averaging more than one hundred per month.

On the 461 applications submitted in the first quarter of 2015, there were 269 cases that were closed, 192 are still in progress and 53 were archived. There were 198 awards, four confirmations and two with more points, ten denials, one withdrawal and one suspension.

From the beginning, since January 2013 to 30 April 2015, the requests so far amount to a total of 1042. The complete list of the companies that have obtained a rating is published on this website (www.agcm.it/rating-di-legalita/elenco.html).

Approved by Parliament at the end of 2012, the rating of legality is the instrument with which the ICA attributes a score, from one to three “stars”, to honest companies that have a turnover of more than two million euros per year and follow a series of legal and “qualitative” requisites. To obtain a “star” the company owner and other executives should not have a criminal record for offences referred to in Legislative Decree number 231 of 2001 and for the main crimes against the public administration and for tax offences. Furthermore, with regards to these persons there shall not be any prosecution initiated for mafia-related crimes.

With regards to the company, it should not have committed administrative offences arising from the offences referred to in Legislative Decree number 231 and it must not have been convicted of illegal antitrust and consumer protection in the previous two years. The company also has to make payments and financial transactions over a thousand euros exclusively with traceable instruments. To obtain a higher score, the Regulation indicates six requirements: two “stars” if half are adhered to, three “stars” if all are adhered to.

Of the rating assigned by the ICA, according to the law and the subsequent decree number 57 of 2014, “there is taken into account the granting of loans by the government, and access to banking credit”. Under the same legislation, “the credit institutions that fail to take into account the rating given in the granting of loans to businesses are required to send the Bank of Italy a detailed report on the reasons of for the decision taken”.

Rome, 5 May 2015