Corporate and Commercial

  • Pursuant to the recently passed Decree n. 206/2011, the Government created a special fund to economically support medium-sized companies operating in the food and drink sector.
  • Parliament recently passed Legislative Decree n. 202/2011 which implements the provisions of EU Directives n. 1234/2007 and n. 543/2008 in Italy. This decree provides for considerable sanctions for food companies who do not respect the European provisions on the labelling and the marketing of chicken products.
  • There may be some further provisions related to this practice area but, if so, they will be included in proposals for amendments to existing law, or new legislation that the Government enacts in order to face the financial crisis.

Human Resources

  • The applicable Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) for ‘Food and Beverage Companies’ will expire on October 1st 2012. In July 2012 the consultations between the social parties (ie, Employers’ Unions and Employees’ Unions) will take place in order to discuss increases to minimum salary and examine critical profiles arising from the application of some contractual provisions contained in the current applicable CBA.
  • The Italian Government is planning to amend the current pensions system in order to face the financial crisis. The terms and conditions related to the likely future pensions system is at present the subject of discussion in Parliament.

Litigation and Regulatory

  • Legislative Decree n. 150/2011 has recently been approved. This Decree reforms the structure of civil proceedings in Italy, in order to shorten the time necessary to obtain a decision from the Courts.

Civil proceedings are now divided into 3 main categories:

  1. Ordinary proceedings;
  2. Labour proceedings;
  3. Ordinary summary proceedings for cases that can be decided with no trial phase.

The effect of the reform will start to become apparent in 2012.