The Italian Prime Minister adopted the Decree concerning new regulation on Italian foreign direct investments rules (hereafter, “golden power”), giving effect to the essential legislative innovations provided by Decree-Law No. 21 of March 21, 2022. The regulation also simplifies operations' notification procedures, potentially subject to the golden power regime, which has increased significantly in recent years.
Since 2020, the Italian golden power regime has been extended to new strategic sectors in addition to the "traditional" ones of defence and national security, energy, transportation, and telecommunications.
The Decree will be published in the Italian Official Journal soon.
One of the main innovations brought by the new Decree is the pre-notification procedure, which allows companies involved to send the Italian Government a report on the draft transactions they plan to conclude to obtain, within 30 days, information on whether or not the transaction or the corporate decision is subject to the golden power discipline. In this way, there will be more certainty for the undertakings concerned about the possible obligation to notify the relevant transaction or a corporate deliberation.
To ensure faster procedures, the Decree provides for specific simplification measures, such as a deadline shorter than the ordinary 45 days period within the Italian Government will communicate the decision not to exercise special powers to the companies concerned in case of unanimity in the positions expressed by the Offices involved.
The Decree under discussion, repealing the former Presidential Decree of August 6, 2014, on the coordination activities of the Italian Government, regulates and updates the main procedural aspects by incorporating established administrative practice in the field.
