Extraordinary governance of the business

1. Business continuity as a legal problem

The decision to allow a business to continue operating despite acts of corruption or a risk of Mafia influence raises a complex issue of public direction of the economy, whose contemporary relevance has become increasingly pressing since the 2000s, also under the impetus of numerous European regulatory initiatives that have prompted the national legislature to adopt new bodies of legislation protecting economic public order and competition. It is necessary to determine who governs the permitted activity, which powers its owners retain, how creditors are protected, how the resources generated are used and what outcome marks the end of public intervention. When entrusted to a preventive measure, continuity becomes an arrangement of powers and responsibilities.

Article 32 of Decree-Law No. 90 of 24 June 2014, converted by Law No. 114 of 11 August 2014, and Articles 34-bis and 94-bis of Legislative Decree No. 159 of 6 September 2011 must be examined from this perspective. These provisions address different situations and assign different tasks to the professionals appointed. Their related organisational objectives do not make the prefect-appointed commissioner, the support and monitoring expert, the collaborative prevention expert and the administrator entrusted with judicial supervision interchangeable. Distinguishing them affects the validity of their acts, their liability and, ultimately, the criteria for remunerating their work.¹

This article argues that the effectiveness of these measures also depends on the care taken in designing their practical operation. An order that fails to clarify the scope of management, a requirement that does not identify the conduct expected or a report that does not allow the resulting change to be verified may undermine public intervention even where the grounds for the measure have been correctly established. Organisational uncertainty has legal and economic consequences: it multiplies disputes, slows decisions and makes responsibility harder to attribute.

The analysis therefore moves from the sources to practical problems, combining an account of the legislation with proposed interpretations and methodological guidance. Its purpose is to offer prefectures, judicial authorities, businesses and their advisers a shared working approach while preserving their distinct functions.

2. A system formed through successive interventions

Article 32 originated in 2014, when the response to serious corruption cases risked jeopardising the completion of works and services in the public interest. The legislature chose to permit intervention in the contractor’s organisation while preserving the possibility of continuing the contractual relationship. This preservation function is accompanied by removing the relevant management functions from those involved and placing profits under restriction. Paragraph 10 extends the mechanism to cases involving an adverse anti-mafia information notice, subject to specified public needs.

The subsequent inclusion of healthcare activities performed on behalf of the National Health Service broadened its scope and highlighted the variety of protected interests: interrupting healthcare has different consequences from delaying construction works. The 2021 intervention further amended Article 32, allowing management imposed directly under paragraph 1(b) to extend beyond an individual contract; it also introduced a ring-fencing measure ordered against the contracting authority and extended support and monitoring beyond contractual performance and within relationships of corporate control.²

Judicial supervision under Article 34-bis, introduced in 2017, instead develops the judicial response to occasional facilitation. Access at the request of a business subject to an adverse anti-mafia notice creates a particularly delicate interface with administrative prevention. In 2021, the legislature also intervened in this interface and introduced, through Article 94-bis, a collaborative prevention pathway within the prefect’s jurisdiction. Article 94.1 was added in 2025 to limit certain disqualifying effects on sole proprietorships.³

This sequence reveals a system built through additions and adjustments, with the limitations inherent in a legislative technique unfortunately common in our country: closely connected measures are distributed across different bodies of legislation, from anti-corruption law to the Anti-Mafia Code, without comprehensive coordination. Interpreters and practitioners are thus left to reconstruct a framework that required a systematic arrangement.

Formulations adopted by the legislature at a particular historical stage may consequently prove inadequate at the next. The suspension of shareholders’ meeting powers, conceived when the paradigm was management of a specific contractual relationship, must now accommodate the possible extension of management. Remuneration linked to a contract’s residual value must accommodate monitoring that may begin after the contract has been fully performed and extend to the business’s entire organisational structure. Historical reconstruction serves to identify these discontinuities without turning a practice developed under an earlier text into an immutable rule.

3. The value of guidelines and the limits of primary legislation

Implementation of Article 32 has been accompanied by an extensive set of guidelines. The First Guidelines of 15 July 2014 and the Second Guidelines of 27 January 2015 helped define the purposes, grounds and operation of the measures. The Third Guidelines, signed in January 2016 and published in the Official Gazette of 2 February 2016, concern remuneration. The Fourth Guidelines of 4 August 2016 address the specific features of healthcare activities; the Fifth Guidelines of 16 October 2018 provide practical guidance on managing profits.⁴

These joint instruments must be distinguished from the provisions through which the President of ANAC regulates the procedure leading to a proposal. The latter organise one stage of administrative action; they are neither the prefect’s order imposing the measure nor an exhaustive statement of the sources relevant to its implementation. Since September 2026, the reference for new proceedings has been the instrument issued by the President of ANAC on 21 July 2026, Article 22(4) of which limits its application to proceedings initiated after its entry into force.⁵

In judgment No. 101/2023, the Constitutional Court ruled out the possibility that guidelines without a specific statutory basis could constitute settled authoritative law or introduce binding rules equivalent to legislation. Their interpretative role and their contribution to administrative practice remain significant. The limit is that they cannot support a financial obligation, a deprivation or a power that primary legislation does not permit.⁶

This distinction requires care in practice. An individual decision may incorporate guidance and translate it into a requirement addressed to the business, but its reasoning must explain the connection with the legislation and the case. Saying “in accordance with the guidelines” does not replace that assessment. Conversely, describing an instrument as guidance does not make administrative consistency, legitimate expectations or the need to explain a departure irrelevant. The issue concerns the quality and basis of its application, rather than a choice between automatic obedience and complete irrelevance.

4. The grounds under paragraph 1: criminal proceedings and established anomalies

Article 32(1) first addresses cases in which judicial authorities are proceeding in relation to specified offences against public administration and the integrity of award procedures. Alongside these, it considers anomalous situations indicative of unlawful conduct or criminal events attributable to the business. These two alternative routes prevent intervention from invariably depending on criminal proceedings; the further requirement of serious and established facts simultaneously prevents it from resting on suspicion unsupported by sufficient investigation.

The opening of an investigation does not dispense with an administrative assessment. The specifically relevant facts, their connection with the operator’s organisation and the reasons why the proposed measure is appropriate must be identified. Seriousness also requires case-specific reasoning. It cannot be inferred solely from the name of the offence or the breadth of its sentencing range. Harm to the public contractual relationship and the organisation’s ability to prevent repetition are distinct from individual criminal liability.

Reference to the serious indications of guilt required by Article 273 of the Code of Criminal Procedure may be useful by comparison; Article 32 does not, however, incorporate that standard wholesale into administrative proceedings. Such automatic incorporation would confuse the factual basis required for a personal precautionary measure with that needed to regulate a business’s management. The obligation remains to prevent the greater flexibility of preventive assessment from reducing the duty to explain the facts.

The list of offences must be read in its current wording and through its successive amendments. Relevant changes include the 2019 amendment of Article 318 of the Criminal Code and the 2024 revision of unlawful influence trafficking. The current penalty for the latter ranges from one year and six months to four years and six months; the reform also affects the elements of the offence. For earlier events, the applicable criminal law must be established, distinguishing the effects of any change in criminal classification from the possibility of independently assessing facts that retain administrative relevance. The latter possibility requires reasons; it cannot circumvent a judicial finding on whether the facts occurred.⁷

5. The operators concerned and their relationship with the public contract

Article 32 identifies specific categories of operators: successful tenderers, healthcare providers covered by the special rules, public works concessionaires and general contractors. Its scope cannot be reconstructed solely from the party formally named in the contract. In groupings and consortium structures, it is necessary to understand who actually performs the services, which entities hold the resources and how powers are distributed. This substantive inquiry does not, however, justify subjecting every business in the supply chain to commissioners.

The decision must identify the legal basis connecting each addressee to the intervention. A mere subcontracting relationship, a minority shareholding or a commercial connection does not automatically constitute the position required by the provision. Extensions to additional entities require their own reasoning and procedural safeguards. The case examined by the Council of State in judgment No. 867/2019 demonstrates the importance of the actual relationship between the entities and the public contract; it does not establish an undifferentiated rule for all consortium companies.⁸

References to concessions also require precision. Article 32 expressly mentions public works concessionaires; implementing instruments and ANAC’s organisational provisions sometimes use broader formulations. Applying the measure to a service concession therefore requires an explicit legal basis, rather than an assumption that a definition in a procedural instrument can by itself broaden the statutory provision. Service continuity is a relevant interest, but it does not eliminate the need to identify the power being exercised.

For general contractors, the reference must be coordinated with the current Public Contracts Code and its transitional provisions. Likewise, the distinction between a public contract and a concession must be based on the transfer of operating risk, where required by the relevant rules, rather than on the idea that a contractor bears no economic risk. Correctly classifying the relationship affects the duration, revenue, investment and sustainability of extraordinary management.

6. ANAC’s proposal and the prefect’s decision

Under the anti-corruption route, the power to propose belongs to the President of ANAC; the implementing decision belongs to the prefect. This division of jurisdiction requires two identifiable assessments. The prefect must establish the grounds and evaluate seriousness, without reducing the intervention to recording the proposal. At the same time, the procedure cannot be reconstructed as though the prefect ordinarily possessed an independent power of initiative identical to that provided by paragraph 10 for adverse anti-mafia notices.

The territorial jurisdiction indicated in paragraph 1 is connected to the contracting authority’s registered office. In procedures conducted by central purchasing bodies, the entity conducting the tender must be distinguished from the administration holding the relationship to be performed. The issue was addressed by the Council of Administrative Justice for the Sicilian Region in decision No. 591 of 21 July 2025. Multiple contracts and public authorities require coordination, but do not permit the statutory criterion to be replaced in advance by the location of the business’s registered office. The specific features of the healthcare route remain.⁹

ANAC’s 2026 provisions emphasise case selection, investigation and assessment of the operator’s corrective initiatives. Relevant considerations include measures already imposed by other authorities, proposed commitments and the conditions for closing a case. The instrument governs the Authority’s procedure; it does not create a general mechanism for ending any measure already in force. Proceedings predating its entry into force are governed by the expressly provided transitional rules.¹⁰

An opportunity to be heard also helps reconstruct the business’s real organisation: delegated powers, functions exercised in practice, termination of appointments, internal controls and relationships with other companies. Formally replacing a director may have a very different meaning depending on whether it removes their effective power or leaves it intact through powers of attorney, family relationships, financial resources or influence over employees. The reasoning must address this organisational reality.

7. Replacement of corporate bodies and management imposed directly

Paragraph 1(a) permits a proposal to renew corporate bodies by replacing the person involved. Initially, this measure preserves corporate governance and requires the business to change its composition. Paragraph 2 gives it thirty days to comply; the following ten-day period concerns the prefect’s appointment of administrators, rather than an undifferentiated ten-day deadline requiring the business to renew its bodies.

In more serious cases, extraordinary management may be imposed directly. This graduated approach does not establish a mandatory sequence that must always move from the least to the most intrusive measure. It requires reasons addressing the adequacy of alternatives. Where those involved permeate the organisation or the proposed replacements are merely apparent, immediate management may be justified. Where the risk is limited and the break with the past is credible, choosing the more invasive solution requires a particularly concrete explanation.

Replacement must be assessed by its result. Control over information, a privileged relationship with the customer, access to accounts or de facto direction of operational functions may survive removal from office. An effective order identifies what must be removed and the documents through which this can be verified. The requirement cannot, however, become an undefined power freely to select shareholders or redesign the entire ownership structure without a statutory basis and a specific necessity.

An important textual asymmetry remains. In 2021, “also” was inserted into subparagraph (b), concerning management imposed directly; subparagraph (a) retains wording limited to performance of the contract, agreement or concession. This difference must inform the reasons and identification of the legal basis applied. It would be incorrect to erase it through a uniform, undifferentiated description of administration by commissioners.¹¹

8. Management of the business after the 2021 amendment

The possibility of imposing extraordinary and temporary management “also limited” to full performance of the public relationship changed an essential feature of the institution. Management ad contractum remains possible, but the wording of subparagraph (b) no longer presents it as the only permissible form. Paragraph 3 must therefore be read by distinguishing an order transferring only the functions required for a defined relationship from one encompassing a broader sphere of business activity.

This expansion does not automatically confer every power over a business whenever a commissioner is appointed. Its extent must emerge from the decision, be justified by the facts and be proportionate to the purpose. Shared structures across multiple contracts, unified effective direction or an inability to separate processes and resources may support broader intervention. Mere administrative convenience does not appear sufficient to restrict activities unrelated to the risk under consideration.

Duration raises a further question. Paragraph 2 retains its connection to the functional needs of the works, service or supply and to final acceptance testing. The amendment did not comprehensively rewrite this criterion for extended management. The order should therefore explain the relationship between the breadth and endpoint of intervention and provide for checks on its continuing necessity. Referring to the business as a whole cannot become the basis for management without a determinable time horizon.

In reconstructing the legislative framework, Constitutional Court judgment No. 101/2023 considers the distinction between management of a contract and management of a business. Its operative ruling nevertheless concerns the allocation of profits under paragraphs 7 and 10. It cannot be cited as resolving every constitutional question concerning the expansion introduced by “also”. The compatibility of a particular extension still requires assessment against the legal basis, reasoning and proportionality of the decision.¹²

9. The appointment order and the design of the mandate

An order imposing management should allow an outsider to understand who is authorised to decide. Naming only the commissioner and the contract may be insufficient where the business uses shared resources, operates within a group or conducts activities under different authorisations. The scope must be expressed through specifically identifiable relationships, functions and representative powers.

Operationally, it is appropriate to specify which acts require the prefect’s authorisation, signing arrangements, relationships between members of any panel, information flows to corporate bodies and the treatment of urgent acts. These directions do not authorise the prefect to confer powers outside the legislation. They make the powers granted exercisable and prevent their boundaries from depending, day by day, on the bargaining strength of those involved.

The law allows up to three administrators to be appointed. Having several administrators does not by itself resolve representation issues: it must be determined whether decisions must be collective, which acts may be delegated and who expresses the administration’s will externally. A general power for each administrator to act separately cannot be presumed to be a universal rule. The choice should reflect the complexity of the mandate, urgency and the need for reciprocal checks, avoiding incompatible instructions concerning the same act.

Taking office requires a documented review of the initial position: contracts, available resources, receivables, debts, staff, litigation, compliance obligations and deadlines. This review does not retrospectively certify previous activity. It should distinguish what is received from what is decided during management and identify matters that could not be verified. Its usefulness emerges especially when, at the end of the appointment, the causes of a loss, the origin of a receivable or responsibility for an omitted obligation must be reconstructed.

10. Professional requirements and the special rules for healthcare appointments

For Article 32 administrators, paragraph 2 refers to the professional and integrity requirements of the regulation adopted under Article 39 of Legislative Decree No. 270/1999. The reference is to Ministerial Decree No. 60 of 10 April 2013. Presidential Decree No. 177/2015 concerns remuneration and does not establish appointment requirements. The corresponding reference in paragraph 8 applies to its experts.¹³

Checking formal requirements must be accompanied by an assessment of suitability for the assignment. Managing complex works, a concession, a labour-intensive service or a healthcare facility requires different knowledge. A panel may combine different expertise; it should not merely reproduce three identical profiles when the mandate calls for distinct legal, business and technical skills. Appointment decisions must also consider independence, conflicts of interest and actual availability of time.

For healthcare activities, paragraph 2-bis provides for a prefect’s order agreed with the Minister of Health and curricula demonstrating qualified professional competence and healthcare management experience. The Fourth Guidelines ordinarily recommend selection from the national list of persons eligible for director-general appointments, while allowing alternatives meeting the requirements. This guidance cannot be turned into an exclusive statutory requirement that every member be on that list.¹⁴

Healthcare management makes the distinction between operating authorisation, institutional accreditation and the contractual agreement with the public service particularly important. Administration by commissioners does not replace missing authorisations, expand the budget or confer entitlement to additional payments. Care continuity must be protected within the applicable authorisation and contractual framework. Paragraph 10-bis also encompasses private parties holding the agreement other than businesses, and requires consideration of unlawful conduct or criminal events harming the National Health Service.

11. The nature of the function and relationships with corporate bodies

The prefect-appointed extraordinary administrator performs a publicly conferred assignment through powers affecting the management of a private organisation. Paragraph 4 classifies the activity as serving the public interest; this does not automatically turn every contract concluded by the commissioner into an administrative decision, or the business into a public administration. The nature of the function and the legal regime of the act must be examined separately.

Where management is circumscribed, ordinary bodies may continue operating in the remaining areas. Coexistence requires rules for shared resources. An employee, property or IT system may serve both the contract under commissioners and the rest of the business. Jurisdiction cannot be resolved by asserting that every decision concerning the asset always belongs to one body or the other: its effect on the segment entrusted to public management must be identified and interference regulated.

The powers conferred include those necessary to protect the business’s interests in performing the relationship entrusted to management. This does not make the commissioner a representative of the contracting authority. Where the mandate requires it, the commissioner may have to challenge that authority’s delays, breaches or financial determinations. The public purpose of continuity does not justify abandoning the company’s receivables, reservations or claims without adequate reason. Proper performance of a public contract includes compliance with both parties’ obligations: this deserves to be recalled.

The order and operating rules should identify who is competent to decide on litigation and grant powers of attorney, distinguishing disputes concerning the relationship under management from challenges to the lawfulness of the administration by commissioners itself. The latter may involve conflicts of representation requiring specific procedural tools. Where its conditions are met, the special representative under Article 78 of the Code of Civil Procedure may resolve a conflict in procedural representation; this is not a general solution to every disagreement between commissioners and ordinary directors.

12. Suspension of shareholders’ meeting powers and its scope

The second sentence of paragraph 3 provides that, for a business constituted as a company, the powers of the shareholders’ meeting are suspended throughout the measure. This raises a different issue from merely suspending directors’ management powers. Shareholders’ meetings address accounts, appointments, capital and organisational changes: an undifferentiated suspension may affect acts necessary to preserve the very business the measure seeks to keep operating.

The literal argument for a general suspension is substantial. The provision does not expressly confine suspension to management resolutions or distinguish ordinary from extraordinary shareholders’ meetings. Moreover, the aim of preventing interference by owners may be frustrated by decisions that radically alter the conditions for contract performance without directly concerning it. It would therefore be insufficient to argue that the meeting remains unrestricted simply because the measure concerns a defined relationship.

There is, however, an equally important systemic argument. Where the order entrusts commissioners with one segment of activity, paralysing every shareholders’ meeting power would also affect the rest of the business. Furthermore, the first sentence of paragraph 3 transfers the functions of management bodies: it does not expressly provide that commissioners assume every power reserved to shareholders. Equating suspension of the meeting with automatically empowering commissioners to amend the articles, approve capital increases or authorise mergers would add a transfer of jurisdiction not expressed in the text.

Legal scholarship, within a framework then dominated by contract management, proposed a functional interpretation of suspension, covering resolutions capable of interfering with the management entrusted to commissioners while preserving other powers. The 2021 intervention requires its application to be tested also where the order extends across the business. This is not an undisputed solution following unambiguously from the literal wording.¹⁵

In this author’s view, the most coherent reconstruction must begin with the specific object of the measure and the function of each resolution. The duration of suspension is set by law; its scope should be read in relation to the effectiveness of commissioners’ powers. This conclusion nevertheless calls for two qualifications: apparently unrelated resolutions may indirectly affect the mandate, and the order cannot freely rewrite the allocation of corporate powers. In doubtful cases, an express determination of scope, open to the available remedies, is required rather than an informal agreement between professionals leaving the validity of acts uncertain.

13. Accounts, appointments, capital and extraordinary transactions during management

Approval of the accounts is the first test. Preparing draft accounts, submitting them to scrutiny and approving them are different activities. Transfer of management powers may encompass preparation of the data and draft accounts within the mandate; it does not justify presuming that the commissioner also assumes shareholders’ decision-making power. Where ordinary management survives, the company’s accounts must also present the segment under commissioners within a unified picture. Submission deadlines, shared accounting criteria and a clear allocation of responsibility for information provided are therefore required.

Under the functional interpretation supported here, the shareholders’ meeting should be able to approve the accounts where this does not entail interference incompatible with extraordinary management. Distribution of profits is, however, a separate resolution: approving the document does not release profits restricted under Article 32(7). Nor does a mere accounting allocation make the liquidity required to fund the reserve freely available. The same caution applies to pre-existing reserves, shareholder loans and other transfers where a transaction removes resources necessary for the contract or seeks indirectly to achieve the prohibited result.

Appointments require a distinction between the commissioner and company directors. The shareholders’ meeting cannot remove a professional appointed by the prefect or neutralise their powers through incompatible delegations. Replacing an ordinary director responsible for residual activities may, however, be necessary for the company’s continuity and, on the same functional interpretation, should not be prevented where it does not interfere with the mandate. Renewal of the supervisory body also requires its own assessment: expiry of statutory auditors’ terms cannot become an opportunity to remove extraordinary management from corporate scrutiny.

Capital transactions require greater caution. An increase may provide resources essential to continuation; it may also change ownership balances and restore influence that the measure sought to remove. A reduction may be required by losses or constitute a voluntary transaction weakening creditors’ protection. It is therefore insufficient to classify the act as favourable or unfavourable to the business. Its basis, subscribers’ identities, source of funds and effect on actual control must be examined. Appointment by the prefect does not by itself disapply civil-law rules on losses and grounds for dissolution.¹⁶

Mergers, demergers, conversions of company form, business transfers and voluntary dissolution may alter the very object of the mandate. Interference may be structural even where the contract under commissioners is formally preserved. Informal consent from the commissioner does not replace verification of corporate powers and compatibility with the order. If the transaction changes the contractor, the checks required by public procurement law are also necessary; compliance with company law does not exhaust the issue.

Finally, a shareholder’s transfer of a holding does not normally constitute a shareholders’ meeting resolution. Assessing its permissibility therefore requires more than reference to the second sentence of paragraph 3. Relevant considerations include the basis of the measure, suspended disposal powers, any provisions in the articles and the risk of circumvention. Ownership of the shares is not transferred to the State; retaining ownership does not, however, mean unrestricted freedom to dispose of them.

For the professional advising the company, the issue should be addressed before convening the meeting. A reasoned request to the prefecture should describe the proposed resolution, urgency, effects on the mandate and proposed solution. This dialogue neither turns the prefect into a corporate body nor cures missing powers, but it allows the decision’s scope to be clarified and judicial protection to be sought promptly where necessary. The functional reconstruction remains an interpretation to be argued, not a general authorisation to disregard paragraph 3.

14. Supervisory bodies and shareholders’ information rights

The board of statutory auditors, the external auditor and the supervisory body under Legislative Decree No. 231/2001 perform different functions. The commissioner’s arrival does not absorb them into undifferentiated public oversight. Within their jurisdiction, statutory auditors examine compliance with the law and the adequacy of organisational arrangements; the external auditor provides the required opinion on the accounts; the supervisory body operates in relation to the compliance model and risks relevant to corporate liability. The measure must fit into this system, correcting shortcomings without erasing responsibilities.¹⁷

The practical issue is circulation of information. Separate management that does not supply the data needed for accounts and controls creates opacity precisely in the area entrusted to prevention. The taking-office record and initial organisational decisions should identify contacts, available documents, response times and access to systems. Investigative confidentiality and personal data protection require specific limits, rather than an undifferentiated refusal to cooperate with authorised bodies.

An analogous distinction applies to shareholders. Suspension of a decision-making power does not automatically settle the position of every individual information, inspection or protection right. The rules vary with company form, the applicant’s position and the nature of the document. Access to accounting information is not equivalent to access to investigative material; a right to challenge an act does not confer a power to direct commissioners. Balanced rules must protect the mandate without depriving the owner of a holding of every means of scrutiny and defence.

15. Separate accounts, assets and financial resources

Management limited to a contract presupposes the ability to reconstruct its financial result and cash flows. An initial inventory, identification of assets and liabilities attributable to the contract, verification of receivables from the customer and documented allocation criteria for shared costs are necessary. Separate accounting primarily makes decisions verifiable. A dedicated bank account, where used, does not replace this reconstruction: it records cash movements, which are not necessarily income and expenses attributable to the period.

Separate accounts do not by themselves create a legally segregated estate. Article 32 does not automatically establish the ring-fenced assets envisaged by Article 2447-bis of the Civil Code; that mechanism has its own conditions, limits and formalities and concerns a particular company form. Nor does merely naming an account a “commissioners’ account” remove all its funds from creditors’ claims. The protection expressly established by paragraph 7 concerns the profits fund and must relate to resources entering it under the law.¹⁸

Separation also requires internal relationships to be governed. Where the contract uses shared staff, offices or equipment, costs must be allocated by verifiable criteria. Where the company transfers resources to the administration, it must be clarified whether this is a payment, advance or loan and what obligations follow. Leaving these relationships to informal set-off between the two management structures makes results unreliable and prepares a dispute at handover.

The commissioner must also assess the liquidity needed for wages, social contributions, supplies and safety. A positive financial result does not guarantee available cash; similarly, substantial receipts may include advances that are not profit. The public restriction gives the business no general entitlement to fresh bank credit, does not suspend every earlier debt and does not automatically give debts arising during management priority status in insolvency. Such effects require a specific provision or legal basis.

16. Contracts, employment, litigation and effective continuity

The power to complete a contract includes decisions on relationships necessary for performance, within the mandate. It is therefore essential to list subcontracts, supplies, leases, insurance, guarantees, litigation and deadlines. Some agreements may be indispensable while presenting precisely the risk the measure must remove: sudden replacement may halt activity, whereas uncontrolled continuation preserves the influence. The choice requires a comparative assessment, with transitional measures and enhanced checks where appropriate.

Administration by commissioners does not cure an unlawful public award or suspend the contracting authority’s powers. Council of State decision No. 143/2015, concerning the institution’s initial application, is significant in distinguishing continuity of management from protection of the tender’s legality. During the measure, termination, withdrawal, forfeiture, price revision and other remedies still require assessment under the applicable rules: none can be excluded merely because the contractor is under commissioners.¹⁹

In employment relationships, preserving jobs is a relevant interest, but does not authorise conduct contrary to safety rules or economically unexamined continuation of every relationship. The order, delegated powers and actual organisation must identify who makes decisions and who holds spending powers. Identifying the employer or other health and safety responsibilities cannot be resolved solely by the title of commissioner; actual powers and the business context must be examined.

Where structural losses emerge, the professional must report them promptly to the prefect. A public purpose does not make the unsustainable sustainable or justify concealing continuity costs. A credible plan must identify needs, available resources, alternatives and the point beyond which the mandate cannot be performed on existing terms. A report to the prefecture must present a decision to be taken, rather than merely chronicle a difficulty.

17. The initial determination of profits and the question of expert valuation

Paragraph 7 entrusts administrators with determining profit from contracts, including by estimation. This meets a practical need: funds must be set aside during management, when the final result may not yet be known. It is not a free choice of a precautionary sum; an identifiable estimate, based on available data and capable of updating, is required. The Fifth Guidelines provide practical directions on establishing and managing the fund.²⁰

Article 32 does not generally require an independent sworn expert report as a condition for setting funds aside. An independent technical report may be appropriate where completion costs, claims, valuation of works or shared-cost allocation raise difficulties the panel cannot adequately resolve through its own expertise. This choice requires reasons addressing costs and engagement rules. It must not be confused with certification obligations under remuneration guidance.

On taking office, it is useful to reconstruct the expected overall margin, distinguishing what has accrued, what has been collected and what depends on subsequent performance. The statutory reference to profit from completion of the contract prevents limiting the calculation, without explanation, to receipts less payments after appointment. Both duplication of earlier allocations and unexplained exclusion of components attributable to the relationship must be avoided. The initial statement should be discussed with the company’s accounts function and submitted to the authority in accordance with the mandate.

For a contract with expected revenue of ten million euros and estimated costs of nine million four hundred thousand euros, the estimated margin is six hundred thousand euros before further relevant adjustments. It does not automatically become one million merely because another provision uses a ten per cent parameter. If completion costs increase, the estimate and allocations must be reviewed; releasing segregated funds nevertheless requires compliance with the fund’s rules and authorisation powers. Updating accounts and having the power to dispose of cash are connected but distinct questions.

Particular attention must be paid to overheads, financing costs, commissioners’ fees, provisions for risks and taxation. The calculation must explain their treatment and avoid deducting the same item twice. VAT received is not thereby disposable revenue; a disputed receivable does not have the same certainty as an acknowledged payment. The fund rules do not replace civil-law and tax recognition criteria: the link between the accounting result, contract result and funds actually restricted must remain understandable.

18. The ten per cent under subparagraph (b-bis) and custody of the fund

Subparagraph (b-bis), introduced in 2021, allows the contracting authority to be ordered to make payments net of profit fixed at ten per cent of the consideration, to be set aside under paragraph 7. This is a specific technique that may also operate in cases under subparagraph (a). Statutory predetermination and identification of the contracting authority as the party making the deduction distinguish it from the determination, including by estimation, entrusted to extraordinary administrators.²¹

The order must clarify which mechanism applies, to which payments and through what transfer arrangements. Where several instruments coexist, the same share must not be withheld by the customer and set aside again by the commissioner. Nor is subparagraph (b-bis) evidence that every contract actually produces ten per cent profit. The statutory percentage governs that measure; it does not universally replace economic analysis of the contract.

The fund must be organised so the restriction is effective. Account ownership, the source of funds, authorised operators, acts required for withdrawals and the treatment of interest and bank charges must be identifiable. The restriction must be made known to the bank; internal accounting unsupported by actual available funds does not achieve the allocation required by law.

The exemption from attachment established by paragraph 7 must not be extended to every business receivable or account used by commissioners. Actual protection requires restricted funds to be identifiable. The Fifth Guidelines also address the period after management ends: the mandate’s endpoint and expiry of the restriction do not necessarily coincide. It is therefore necessary to establish who keeps the fund, follows relevant litigation and initiates the decision on allocation. Operational administration may have ended while asset management still requires regulation.²²

19. Final allocation of profits after Constitutional Court judgment No. 101/2023

A temporary restriction on profits does not by itself establish general rules for their definitive acquisition. Under the anti-corruption route, a criminal outcome may be accompanied by confiscation, restitution or damages; each effect requires its own legal basis. A conviction does not authorise automatic transfer of the entire fund to any interested administration, while removal of the precautionary reason does not permit effective asset orders to be ignored.

For administration following an adverse anti-mafia notice, the Constitutional Court addressed the issue in judgment No. 101/2023. The questions concerning paragraphs 7 and 10 were held unfounded subject to the interpretation set out in the reasoning. The Court reconstructed the rules without recognising any power in the Fifth Guidelines to support automatic transfer of all profits to the contracting authority. Coordination must take account of protection for the value of work performed and the limit of the benefit obtained by the administration.²³

The outcome cannot be reduced to the opposite formula that the business is always entitled to the entire reserved margin. The value of performance, benefit received, costs already paid and other payments must be reconstructed. Claims and restrictions with their own legal basis must then be considered, avoiding duplication. Contract accounting thus becomes decisive for final allocation too: a fund determined using opaque criteria makes correct application of the Court’s rule harder.

Consider performance whose recognisable value, within the benefit obtained, is one hundred, with costs already remunerated of ninety. The maximum balance theoretically recognisable is ten, before other relevant payments or claims. Twelve in the fund does not establish the business’s entitlement to twelve; ten does not establish the administration’s entitlement to retain it all. The example demonstrates the need for settlement based on the relationship performed, rather than replacing valuation criteria applicable to a particular case.

The final determination should therefore contain the accounts, a picture of litigation and effective orders, a reasoned allocation proposal and an opportunity for interested parties to be heard. Where entitlement remains disputed, the solution cannot lie in a bank instruction issued by the professional beyond their powers. The fact that funds are physically held in a restricted account does not empower its operator to determine the disputed right definitively.

20. The commissioner’s liability and the meaning of adverse economic results

Paragraph 4 classifies the activity as serving the public interest and limits administrators’ liability for adverse economic results to intentional misconduct and gross negligence. The provision recognises the risk of decisions in an exceptional context, where continuity may require costs and choices differing from those of a business free to stop operating immediately. It guarantees no positive financial result and does not remove the duty to give reasons for decisions.²⁴

The limitation concerns adverse economic results. It cannot become immunity for every breach or automatically extend to criminal liability, tax offences or safety obligations. Each allegation requires identification of the conduct, duty breached, damage, causal link and relevant liability regime. The personal legal status relevant in criminal proceedings also requires examination of the function actually performed, rather than inference solely from appointment by a prefect.

The best professional protection is documentation contemporaneous with the decision. It should reveal the alternatives considered, information available, checks performed, reasons for urgency and any dissent within the panel. An explained and anticipated loss may be compatible with the mandate; a concealed loss or one caused by a transaction outside its scope raises different issues. The relationship with the prefect does not eliminate the professional’s technical autonomy or make simply copying the prefect equivalent to obtaining an authorisation required by the assignment rules.

21. Commissioners’ remuneration and the rules for healthcare activities

Paragraph 6 requires remuneration to be quantified in the appointment order using the tables referred to in Article 8 of Legislative Decree No. 14/2010, with the business bearing the cost. The regulatory reference is Presidential Decree No. 177 of 7 October 2015. The Third Guidelines adapt this framework to prefectural management, which differs from administering a seized business. The fee determination must identify the calculation base, period, increases, advances and expenses.²⁵

For contract management, the 2016 guidance uses the relationship’s residual value and regulates its reconstruction and certification by the contracting authority. It provides a basic fee within annual limits of ten thousand to one hundred and twenty thousand euros, with reasoned increases for complexity and exceptional situations. Increases of up to fifty per cent and up to one hundred per cent must not be mechanically added as invariably payable components. For a panel, the increase of up to seventy per cent applies to the total fee to be distributed, rather than an identical full fee payable to each member.

Reference to tables does not dispense with assessing the actual work. Extension to several contracts, a term shorter than a year or an appointment encompassing the entire business require an explicit, coherent calculation, rather than allowing a formula designed for a limited contract to replace all assessment. Appointments of assistants and consultants, reimbursements and advances must follow the relevant conditions and authorisations. Appointing a panel does not automatically justify duplication of external professional structures.

For healthcare activities, the Fourth Guidelines use the maximum annual funding recognisable by the National Health Service as a specific parameter. Reference to the expenditure ceiling reflects the particular nature of continuing, periodically renewed relationships. It is not equivalent to the healthcare facility’s market value, its entire assets or merely the unpaid balance of an individual invoice. Here too, basic limits, increases and panel arrangements must be applied without unjustified accumulation.²⁶

The guidance’s reference to public-sector remuneration limits warrants separate examination. Constitutional Court judgment No. 135/2025 affected the fixed ceiling of two hundred and forty thousand euros within the rules submitted to it, restoring a dynamic link to the remuneration of the First President of the Court of Cassation. This does not automatically abolish every limit on prefectural appointments paid by private businesses. It is necessary to establish whether and how that parameter was incorporated, its function in the appointment order and the temporal effects of the constitutional ruling. Both uncritical repetition of the old ceiling and assertions that remuneration is now unlimited are insufficiently reasoned conclusions.²⁷

22. Support and monitoring under paragraph 8 and operational requirements

Paragraph 8 governs an intervention that preserves business management and entrusts support and monitoring to up to three experts. Its express ground concerns investigations into members of corporate bodies other than those considered for the stronger measures; practical guidance develops its role as a less intrusive intervention. The decision’s legal basis must nevertheless remain identifiable: describing a measure as lighter does not dispense with statutory grounds and procedure.²⁸

The role’s specificity emerges from the task of issuing operational requirements, developed using recognised transparency indicators and models and concerning organisational arrangements, internal controls, management and supervisory bodies. The legislature did not describe merely optional advice. Within the mandate and in relation to established shortcomings, the expert may require concrete changes to the allocation of powers, decision-making processes and controls. Requirements must be understandable, feasible, proportionate and verifiable.

A general instruction to “adopt an effective 231 model” may provide an initial description of the expected result. Requiring identification of exposed activities, separation between those selecting and authorising an intermediary, verification of actual services and periodic reporting to the supervisory body is different. A requirement’s quality is measured by the possibility of checking compliance and its ability to correct the mechanism that enabled the conduct, rather than by the length of the document produced.

Prescriptive powers do not confer the commissioner’s substitutive management role on the expert. The professional does not ordinarily sign contracts instead of the director, freely operate accounts or automatically assume every corporate power. The business remains responsible for management choices within the obligations imposed. Where a requirement appears outside the mandate or disproportionate, disagreement must be formalised and submitted to the competent authority; its legality should not be settled through an unrecorded informal conflict.

Non-compliance must be reported to the prefect, describing the requirement, deadline, reasons given and effects on remediation. Not every discrepancy automatically leads to commissioners: any further measure requires its own basis, investigation and assessment by the authority. Conversely, presenting all directions under paragraph 8 as suggestions that may freely be ignored would empty the legislature’s choice of operational requirements of meaning.

23. Monitoring after the contract and within corporate groups

Since 2021, paragraph 8 has expressly allowed support and monitoring even after a contract has been concluded and fully performed. The legislature thus recognised that organisational problems may outlive the relationship in which they emerged. The measure no longer invariably ends naturally with the final contractual performance. For this very reason, the order must identify its duration, objectives, reviews and completion conditions with particular precision.²⁹

The expansion also concerns groups. Requirements may be addressed to companies exercising control under Article 2359 of the Civil Code, if involved in the investigations, and to companies controlled by them. Generic membership of the same economic group is insufficient. The decision must reconstruct control relationships, the required involvement and the function of requirements for each addressee. The text cannot be summarised by replacing companies controlled by the businesses involved with any entity having an economic relationship with them.

The substantive problem is often concentration of services: purchasing, treasury, advisers, personnel and IT may depend on the parent while a subsidiary holds the award. Addressing only the subsidiary’s organisational document risks leaving the risk-producing process intact. Conversely, indiscriminately extending obligations to unrelated companies entails costs and restrictions requiring independent justification.

On the 2021 expansion, the Council of State made a preliminary reference by order No. 7971 of 4 October 2024. By order of 28 April 2025 in Case C-656/24, the Court of Justice held the request manifestly inadmissible. This was not a merits ruling generally approving national legislation under EU law. The legal basis, proportionality and safeguards of an extension therefore still require argument in individual cases.³⁰

24. The expert’s remuneration after the contract has ended

Article 32(9) gives the expert a fee determined in the appointment order, borne by the business and not exceeding fifty per cent of the amount payable under the referenced tables. This rule survives full performance of the contract. The problem is not absence of entitlement but the inadequacy of the contractual parameter used by the 2016 guidance for a role the amendment made independent of ongoing performance.

Taking a zero residual value and inferring an unpaid assignment would contradict the statutory recognition of remuneration. Conversely, using the entire historical contract value without explanation may produce remuneration disconnected from the work required. The order should clarify which measure describes the business under monitoring, which tabular criterion applies, how duration affects it and how paragraph 9’s ceiling is respected. Comparisons must concern homogeneous values rather than percentages applied to different bases without reconciliation.

The policy guidance approved by the Minister of the Interior on 2 October 2025 for Article 94-bis experts offers a particularly significant comparison. In point 3, the Ministry itself observes the close similarity between the wording of Article 94-bis(2) and Article 32(9) and considers the two experts’ functions substantially analogous as internal safeguards within businesses retaining their own bodies. The ministerial instrument therefore supplies an argument for comparison, without leaving the shared title of expert to carry it alone. Its express scope nevertheless remains Article 94-bis.³¹

That argument encounters a limit in the instrument’s own preamble. Reporting the opinion of the State Attorney General’s Office, the Ministry notes the difficulty of generally extending the Third Guidelines to Article 94-bis. The document thus distinguishes similarity of some functions from wholesale transferability of the remuneration system. Using the statement of similarity to import every criterion while ignoring the caution that prompted the new guidance would be inconsistent.

In this author’s view, using the business-based calculation developed in 2025 for monitoring after contractual performance can be supported as a reasoned adaptation of the shared reference to Presidential Decree No. 177/2015. This is more precise than a generic analogy between decrees: the gap concerns the implementing parameter after the amendment, whereas entitlement and the ceiling already appear in paragraph 9. It must be explained why business value better reflects the actual object of supervision, how duration and scope are considered and which parts of the guidance are compatible. Differences in prescriptive powers, procedure and temporal rules remain relevant.

The opposing solution, favouring preservation of historical contract value or direct reconstruction of the regulatory parameter without the new table, must likewise demonstrate consistency with an assignment now directed at the organisation. The appointment order should make the choice between these interpretations explicit.

The initial determination may provide for a provisional amount, adjustment criteria and advances, provided the choice is reasoned and makes the burden foreseeable. Postponing every decision until monitoring ends creates an avoidable dispute between the expert who has already worked and the business required to pay. Economic certainty of the appointment is a condition of independence and proper operation of the measure.

25. Administration following an adverse anti-mafia information notice

Paragraph 10 is an independent route into Article 32. It requires an adverse anti-mafia information notice and a qualified urgent necessity: completing or continuing the relationship to meet the needs listed in the provision, including continuity of functions and services essential to fundamental rights, protection of employment and public budget integrity. The prefect initiates the measure and informs the President of ANAC; in healthcare, agreement with the Minister of Health is required.³²

The adverse notice alone is insufficient. Reasons must explain why continuation is necessary, the consequences of interruption, whether workable alternatives exist and the intervention’s required scope. The business’s mere interest in retaining turnover is not the public interest required. Protecting employment levels must also be examined concretely, considering the number and position of workers, replacement possibilities and the consequences of a change of operator.

Article 94(3) of the Anti-Mafia Code governs specified cases in which an administration does not revoke or withdraw, particularly where works are near completion or essential supplies and services cannot rapidly be replaced. Paragraph 10’s reference shows that continuation may also raise the need for an organisational safeguard. Deciding that a relationship should temporarily continue does not by itself settle who should govern its performance.

Administration by commissioners is not equivalent to a favourable anti-mafia clearance and does not automatically restore a business’s general capacity to contract with public authorities. Permitted activity must be identified within the order and applicable rules. Protecting a specific service does not authorise presenting the operator to the market as though the adverse notice had been annulled. This distinction is decisive in tender declarations, relationships with banks and customers and external communications.

Paragraph 10’s reference to the other provisions of the article allows the relevant instruments to be used, but adaptation requires consistency with the anti-mafia context. Choosing support and monitoring, also reflected in the final reference to experts’ directions, requires reasons concerning the business’s ability to retain management. The adverse notice and preservation intervention must not become two decisions describing the same risk in irreconcilable terms without explanation.

25-bis. Transfer of the registered office during a measure and prefectural jurisdiction

A transfer of the business’s registered office to another province during extraordinary administration raises an issue not expressly resolved in all its implications: whether jurisdiction to oversee the measure and make subsequent decisions remains with the prefect who imposed it or passes to the prefect for the new office. This affects extraordinary administrators’ daily work, examination of their reports, requests to vary the measure and determination of fees. For extraordinary management already imposed under Article 32, I favour rejecting the proposition that the registered-office transfer alone automatically transfers these powers.

First, the criteria identifying the competent authority must be distinguished. For measures proposed by the President of ANAC, Article 32(1) refers to the contracting authority’s registered office: the business’s office transfer does not itself change the statutory territorial connection. Support and monitoring under paragraph 8 nevertheless also require consideration of the supplementary criterion of the operator’s registered office, accepted in ministerial practice where multiple contracts were awarded by contracting authorities in different provinces. Even within Article 32, the issue therefore cannot be addressed without identifying the original basis of jurisdiction.³³

For administration following an adverse notice under paragraph 10, the link with the prefect issuing the anti-mafia information is instead relevant. Article 92(2-ter)(b) of the Anti-Mafia Code also entrusts that prefect, after issuing the adverse notice, with checking the grounds for extraordinary measures. Paragraph 5 of the Second ANAC–Ministry of the Interior Guidelines of 27 January 2015 had already attributed both initiation of proceedings and imposition of administration to the prefect issuing the notice. They also recommend liaison with the prefect where the contract is performed, if different: coordination between offices thus forms part of the institution’s practical structure.³⁴

Three matters must nevertheless remain distinct: continued validity and effectiveness of decisions already adopted; jurisdiction to govern an ongoing extraordinary measure; and jurisdiction to conduct fresh inquiries and update anti-mafia documentation. Survival of the order does not itself establish that every subsequent power remains with the issuing office. Equally, the possible transfer of proceedings to update anti-mafia information to the new prefecture does not itself establish that management of the extraordinary measure must also transfer.

The adverse notice and administration order are connected decisions with distinct objects and functions. The latter requires an independent assessment of the public interests justifying continued activity under extraordinary management. This functional autonomy must not, however, be understood as independence from the course of the adverse notice: paragraph 10 expressly links the measures’ fate to events concerning that notice, including updating under Article 91(5). The proposed distinction of powers therefore requires updating outcomes to be communicated promptly to the authority overseeing administration, so that consequential decisions can be taken.³⁵

Specific support appears in ANAC’s Annual Report on its 2024 activities, presented in 2025. Examining a disqualified business’s change of office, the Authority attributes application of extraordinary measures and consequential acts to the prefect issuing the adverse notice; it also states that a transfer after the notice and administration order does not compromise the validity and effectiveness of decisions already adopted. This supports continuity of intervention but must not become an exhaustive regime governing succession between offices: preservation of effects and possession of future powers remain conceptually distinct.³⁶

In the same direction, with the necessary caution, weight may be given to “the Prefect who imposed the measures” in Article 18 of ANAC’s provisions of 16 September 2022, repeated in Article 19 of those of 21 July 2026. The reference encompasses decisions on duration, extension, implementation and management arrangements and appointments. The provision nevertheless concerns measures adopted on the President of ANAC’s proposal and primarily delimits their respective institutional roles. It thus supplies a systemic argument, but is not itself a statutory rule fixing territorial jurisdiction in the different procedure under paragraph 10.³⁷

It does not, however, appear correct to derive a general freezing of jurisdiction from Article 87(2-bis) of the Anti-Mafia Code. That provision expressly concerns issuing an anti-mafia communication and makes an office change following the interested administration’s request irrelevant. Anti-mafia information requires consideration of Article 90 and the related case law. In Section III judgment No. 5306 of 2 July 2026, referring to judgment No. 942 of 5 February 2026, the Council of State distinguishes a transfer before the opportunity-to-be-heard stage ends from one afterwards: during the strictly decision-making phase, an office change does not shift jurisdiction from the prefecture that conducted the investigation. This approach values stability of jurisdiction relative to the procedural stage; it concerns issuing an adverse notice, however, rather than managing an administration already imposed.³⁸

The solution favouring retained jurisdiction must therefore rest on the extraordinary measure’s specific structure. The prefect imposing it defined its scope, identified the public interests to preserve and organised the commissioners’ oversight. Where the office transfer does not change the contracts concerned, activities entrusted to administrators or needs justifying intervention, changing the company’s address alone does not appear sufficient to interrupt that continuity. The original link with the issuing office has a functional importance extending beyond the business’s registered location.

The contrarius actus principle may contribute to this reconstruction but does not resolve it completely. Articles 21-quinquies and 21-nonies of Law No. 241/1990 attribute revocation and ex officio annulment to the issuing body or another body designated by law. This does not automatically make every subsequent function’s allocation immutable. Likewise, efficiency and the prohibition on unnecessary procedural burdens support the interpretation, but do not permit departure from a different statutory allocation of jurisdiction.³⁹

The contrary interpretation rests on territorial proximity and the need to keep anti-mafia functions concerning a business unified. It cannot be dismissed as unfounded, especially where the transfer genuinely moves the business’s management and operational centre. Nor need it be assumed that the new office must repeat all earlier inquiries: transfer of the file can preserve their results. It nevertheless remains to show why the current registered-office criterion relevant to anti-mafia documentation should attract every power concerning the distinct administration. This step, rather than mere organisational convenience, is the focus of the interpretative disagreement.

In practice, disagreement between prefectures must be resolved without leaving administrators without an institutional contact. The chosen solution should appear in an express, reasoned determination identifying its legal basis, competent office and pending tasks. Where succession is considered necessary, complete transfer of the file and continuity of activity must be ensured, clarifying who decides applications already submitted. An organisational agreement can regulate the transition but cannot create jurisdiction without a statutory basis. If disagreement persists, referral to the Ministry of the Interior for interpretation and necessary coordination appears appropriate.

The proposed conclusion concerns continuation of an Article 32 measure already adopted. It does not dispense with checking jurisdiction for new interventions with independent objects and grounds, nor can it automatically extend to collaborative prevention under Article 94-bis. For the latter, reference to the inter-agency group of the prefecture competent for the registered office or residence and the final assessment of whether occasional facilitation has ended require specific examination of programme continuity and territorial jurisdiction.⁴⁰

This issue also demonstrates the need for legislation distinguishing identification of the authority competent to impose a measure from possession of powers during its implementation, preventing a corporate event from creating uncertainty over the exercise of public functions.

26. Termination of measures and handover of the business

Paragraph 5 provides for revocation and, in any event, cessation of the effects of paragraph 2 measures where confiscation, seizure or judicial administration of the business occurs in the specified proceedings, or the proceedings are discontinued. The law adds that the judicial authority confirms the prefect-appointed administrators where possible. Continuity of personnel may reduce transition costs, but is neither a professional’s right to retain an appointment nor a reason to equate the two functions.⁴¹

The subsequent event must be read according to its object. Personal seizure or seizure of assets unrelated to the business does not necessarily match the statutory provision; partial discontinuance requires identification of the facts and persons concerned. An independent anti-mafia basis also requires distinguishing the course of criminal proceedings from the adverse notice. An abstract formula cannot correctly yield automatic termination of every measure also based on other elements.

Under paragraph 10, specifically relevant events are final annulment of the adverse notice, an order definitively granting interim relief and a favourable update under Article 91(5), including following compliance with experts’ directions. These grounds differ; the actual decision must be obtained and its scope checked. A mere appeal, reconsideration request or notification of reorganisation is not equivalent to the statutory termination event.

Expiry of the mandate likewise requires a timely decision on remaining tasks. The professional cannot grant themselves an extension merely because obligations remain. Handover of accounts, contracts, credentials, deadlines, litigation and documents must be organised, distinguishing closing acts from continued management. The final account should allow the recipient to resume activity without reconstructing it from scattered information.

Termination of management powers does not automatically release the profits fund or determine the final fee. These relationships must be expressly regulated, identifying subsequent powers. The same applies to organisational requirements: the appointment’s end should not mean abandoning procedures now necessary for sound administration, but obligations still claimed as legally binding must have an identifiable basis.

27. Anti-mafia proceedings and assessment of occasional facilitation

Understanding Article 94-bis requires starting with the distinction between infiltration risk and criminal liability. An adverse anti-mafia information notice is preventive: it does not necessarily require a conviction and calls for an overall assessment of indicative elements. This does not authorise an undefined judgment on the business’s reputation. The facts, significant relationships and link between these elements and the possibility of influencing economic activity must be explained.⁴²

Kinship, social contacts, employment or territorial presence gain significance in context. They should neither operate as self-sufficient labels nor be dismissed individually where their combination reveals a coherent mechanism of influence. Prevention requires understanding who can direct decisions, how that power is exercised and which business vulnerabilities make it possible.

The opportunity to be heard under Article 92(2-bis) is particularly important here. Subject to urgency and statutory disclosure limits, the business must be able to present documents, explanations and corrective initiatives before the decision. A period of no more than twenty days for observations and requests for a hearing requires immediate preparation by counsel and the business. The most useful submission is not necessarily the longest: it must connect each allegation to verifiable facts and practicable remedies.⁴³

Occasionality does not simply mean a single incident numerically. One isolated relationship may reveal stable dependence; several anomalies may arise from a limited, removable mechanism. Assessment must address the influence’s embeddedness and intensity, the position of those involved and the possibility of removing its causes. Recoverability cannot be promised merely through fresh corporate paperwork; it requires people, resources and controls capable of functioning.

28. The measures under Article 94-bis(1)

Where the prefect identifies infiltration attempts attributable to occasional facilitation, one or more measures are prescribed by a reasoned decision for six to twelve months. The statutory verb makes correct classification central: once those grounds are established, collaboration is not a discretionary concession without criteria. Case assessment and selection of appropriate requirements remain.⁴⁴

Subparagraph (a) concerns adoption and effective implementation of organisational measures, including instruments under Legislative Decree No. 231/2001. This reference does not reduce intervention to purchasing a compliance model. The measure must address the causes of facilitation: supplier selection, internal assignments, cash access, site management, recruitment, consultancy or intermediary relationships, according to the established facts. Formal adoption and effective implementation are two different stages.

Subparagraph (b) requires notification to the inter-agency group within fifteen days of the specified acts, for values of at least five thousand euros or the higher threshold set by the prefect under statutory criteria. This must be distinguished from judicial supervision’s seven-thousand-euro threshold and ten-day deadline. Business models copied from one procedure to another may cause omissions in these basic obligations.

Subparagraphs (c) and (d) concern, respectively, financing of companies by shareholders or third parties and silent partnership agreements. The former must not be confined to loans formally bearing that name: the law covers financing in any form. The actual relationship must nevertheless be classified, distinguishing it from commercial payments or transactions serving another function. Subparagraph (e) requires a dedicated, though not necessarily exclusive, account and the traceability arrangements referenced in the provision. This creates no general obligation to route every business transaction through a single exclusive account.

Selecting one or more requirements allows intervention to be graduated. Imposing every obligation through standard formulas unrelated to risks may increase burdens without improving prevention. The order should specify recipients, formats, deadlines and corporate responsibilities, rather than leaving the expert to create the entire binding content from scratch.

29. The collaborative prevention expert and the Lazio Regional Administrative Court order

Paragraph 2 allows the prefect, in addition to the measures, to appoint up to three experts selected from the register referenced in Article 35(2-bis). Appointment is not a necessary component of every collaborative prevention programme. The task supports implementation: the provision does not reproduce the power to issue operational requirements under Article 32(8). This difference in wording corresponds to a different allocation of power.⁴⁵

The prefect imposes the measures. The expert helps make them workable, obtains necessary information within the mandate, examines implementation and reports to the authority. The expert may offer guidance, propose corrections and report obstacles; they should not independently turn every organisational preference into a new administrative obligation. Where requirements need substantial supplementation, the correct route is to submit a proposal to the prefect to assess its basis, proportionality and procedural safeguards.

Further support appears in the ministerial remuneration instrument of 2 October 2025. Its preamble describes an auxiliary function without direct interference, directed at checking implementation of the prefect’s requirements within a business still managed by its own bodies. This is administrative guidance rather than a new grant of powers, but the description confirms that support must not become substitutive administration.⁴⁶

A significant example is interim order No. 2661 of 15 May 2025 of the Lazio Regional Administrative Court, Rome, Section I-ter, in application No. 4675/2025. Examining a request to suspend a collaborative prevention measure and related acts, the court considered, among the reasons for finding no serious and irreparable harm, the non-binding nature of notes issued by the prefecture’s expert. Interim relief was refused. The decision is cited anonymously in accordance with the anonymisation direction.⁴⁷

The precedent’s scope must remain precise. It is an interim decision concerning the challenged notes and assessment of harm, not a final judgment exhaustively determining every question about the expert’s powers. It nevertheless provides concrete support for distinguishing the prefect’s requirements from professional support directions. It would be incorrect to turn it into a rule permitting the business to ignore any request functional to the assignment, or to attribute the opposite proposition of a general prescriptive power to the expert.

A direction’s non-binding nature does not exclude its relevance to evaluating progress. A business may propose a different solution, provided it demonstrates how that solution achieves the imposed objective; the expert must assess its merits and report the reasons for disagreement too. Reports to the prefecture should distinguish breach of an obligation, failure to adopt a suggestion and substantive inadequacy of the solution chosen. Confusing these situations distorts the basis for the next decision.

30. Remuneration of the Article 94-bis expert and ministerial criteria

The primary rules appear in paragraph 2 itself: determination in the appointment order, cost borne by the business, company or association, and a ceiling of fifty per cent of the fee payable under the criteria of the decree referenced in Article 8 of Legislative Decree No. 14/2010. Presidential Decree No. 177/2015 is therefore the statutory reference; adapting it to support work requires identification of the calculation base and components compatible with the role.⁴⁸

The Minister of the Interior’s decree of 2 October 2025 approves generally applicable policy guidance with an accompanying table. The preamble reports the State Attorney General’s Office’s invitation to prepare specific directions to avoid difficulties arising from a general extension of Article 32’s Third Guidelines. The document aims to harmonise fee determinations, but remains subordinate to primary legislation. Definitions, calculation, expenses, procedure and transitional provisions must be read together.⁴⁹

The calculation method adopted here takes gross assets, progressively applies the minimum rates in the ministerial table and determines remuneration at fifty per cent of the result, then adds five per cent general expenses and applicable ancillary charges. Selection of minimum rates, the fifty per cent ceiling and quantification of expenses are distinct steps that must be presented separately in the report and decision. The fifty per cent used in the examples remains within the statutory ceiling, expressed as an amount not exceeding that percentage.

The base is the value of the business as a whole, identified through gross assets and reconstructed according to its accounting regime. Businesses filing accounts use the latest approved accounts or the draft available at appointment, with valuation at market prices. Other commercial businesses use assets in the updated inventory book; for unincorporated agricultural businesses and those without the specified records, assets must be reconstructed through public registers, tax documentation and other reliable evidence. Assets held under finance leases, ordinary leases or loans for use must be distinguished from owned assets.

Point 2 also includes established receivables, inventory, cash, goodwill and further asset values under its specific criteria. This reconstruction requires a reconciliation statement preventing duplication and identifying each item’s source, date and valuation criterion. Goodwill must not be added again if the value already includes it; nominal receivable value presupposes verification of the classification required by the guidance. The expression “gross assets, already adjusted for the corresponding liability items” also raises a precision issue: adjusting asset valuations and indiscriminately subtracting every debt produce different results. The report must identify the actual adjustments and retain gross assets as the reference, rather than indiscriminately substituting net assets.⁵⁰

The table uses eight progressive bands corresponding to Presidential Decree No. 177/2015, with rates calculated by averaging, for each band, the minimum values in subparagraphs (a) and (b) and, separately, their maximum values. It does not calculate a single average between the minimum and maximum of the same band. The first rates are 8.4–9.8 per cent up to €16,227.08; the final rates are 0.325–0.63 per cent on the amount above €2,434,061.37. Point 3 requires the criterion of remuneration not exceeding fifty per cent to be applied to the result afterwards: the table’s percentages have not already been halved.⁵¹

An entirely hypothetical example demonstrates the process. Taking gross assets of four million euros, progressive application of the minimum rates produces a table result of €43,563.70, rounded to cents. Applying fifty per cent gives remuneration of €21,781.85. The final band’s rate is not applied to the entire business value, and the full table result is not awarded. The statement must explain the rounding sequence, which in this example first concerns the table total and then each subsequent component.

The five per cent flat-rate reimbursement on the reduced fee is €1,089.09; fees and expenses therefore total €22,870.94. Assuming, solely for this example, a four per cent professional pension contribution on that sum adds €914.84. VAT at twenty-two per cent on the base including the contribution, €23,785.78, is €5,232.87, giving a total of €29,018.65. Ancillary charges must be checked against the professional’s pension and tax position. The overall sum must be distinguished from the net amount payable after any tax obligations of the payer. Every figure in this example is illustrative and describes no actual fee determination.

Point 5 provides for initial quantification using minimum percentage rates and possible final redetermination within the maximum rates following a reasoned, documented request concerning difficulties and work performed. Point 4 excludes the increases under Article 4(1) and (2) of Presidential Decree No. 177/2015, which could defeat the statutory ceiling. The increase of up to one hundred per cent applicable to other roles must therefore not be imported into Article 94-bis. The guidance defines the minimum by reference to Article 3(5) of the regulation, fixing the parameter at €811.35; the relationship between this safeguard and the statutory reduction must be apparent from the chosen calculation, without implicit reductions or rounding.

For a panel of up to three experts, point 3 refers to an overall increase of up to seventy per cent followed by allocation. In the preceding hypothetical example, starting from €21,781.85 and applying the maximum increase would give a total panel fee of €37,029.15, or €12,343.05 each if divided into three equal shares. The limit concerns an increase in the total, rather than a seventy per cent increase for each expert on their own full fee.

General expenses range from five to ten per cent of the fee; the guidance ordinarily considers five per cent appropriate, allowing reasoned adjustment. Additional expenses must be documented and authorised, with the specific parameter provided for travel. An assistant requires the prefect’s consent and remains at the expert’s expense. Their cost cannot therefore be transferred automatically to the business as an additional item, or confused with necessary business expenses having a different basis.

The procedure begins with selection and acceptance by the professional. Notification to the business follows, with an invitation to provide documents within thirty days of the request, then the expert’s report and the prefect’s review. The appointment order determines remuneration and may reserve final redetermination within the stated limits. This sequence makes the economic basis known before all work has been done; it does not give the business free negotiation over the value of a publicly conferred assignment.⁵²

Point 6 provides quarterly advances subject to reports and accounts. After requiring a dedicated account, the prefect sets a deposit of sixty to seventy per cent of the fee; the business reports payment into the account within thirty days of notification of appointment and undertakes to reserve it for remuneration. Ring-fencing is not immediate payment to the expert and must not be confused with Article 32’s profits fund. Point 6 does not expressly exempt these sums from attachment as Article 32(7) does for a different fund.

Duration requires its own reasons. The guidance does not simply reproduce annual remuneration based on contract value under the Third Guidelines. The order must clarify the period and activities included, avoiding automatic multiplication of the result by the number of years or, conversely, halving it solely because prevention lasts six months. Any early termination and work already performed must be addressed in the final determination, without confusing advances with definitive accrual of the entire fee.

Finally, the text contains an internal tension requiring clarification. For lean, digitalised businesses, point 2 provides five per cent of net profits and 0.50 per cent of gross revenue earned during management, referencing Article 3(4) of the regulation. Point 4 subsequently excludes that paragraph’s application. A reconciliatory reading might treat the former as a special criterion and the latter as excluding general addition to the asset-based fee. This remains a proposed interpretation: the document does not expressly clarify substitution or accumulation, or numerical coordination with the fifty per cent ceiling. The solution must be explicit and reasoned, avoiding automatic addition of the two bases.⁵³

The transitional provisions concern procedures without an appointment at adoption and those where, despite adoption and notification of the order, the expert had not yet filed a fee-quantification report. The latter case requires notification of the guidance and acquisition of the expert’s and business’s consent. It is therefore incorrect to apply the new system retroactively to every earlier assignment as though point 7 contained no conditions. The instrument harmonises an important part of practice, but does not eliminate the need to justify its specific application.⁵⁴

31. Completion of collaborative prevention and protection of sole proprietorships

Assessment of progress need not wait until expiry. Article 49(2-bis) of Decree-Law No. 152/2021, outside the text of Article 94-bis itself, permits revocation or variation at any time and states that the measures do not prevent an adverse anti-mafia information notice. Collaboration therefore grants no period of immunity from further inquiries. If elements incompatible with occasionality or the programme emerge, the prefect must assess them under procedural rules and explain the change. Likewise, the variation power allows inadequate requirements to be adapted without waiting for the entire period to expire.⁵⁵

Article 94-bis(4) links favourable clearance to the prefect’s finding, based on the inter-agency group’s analysis, that occasional facilitation has ended and no further infiltration attempts exist. Simply reaching six or twelve months is not automatic certification of remediation. The final assessment must nevertheless be timely: a fixed-term programme should not become indefinite uncertainty through inertia.⁵⁶

The expert’s final report is one element in the procedure; it neither replaces the inter-agency group’s analysis nor independently binds the prefect. It should distinguish measures implemented, practical verification, remaining shortcomings and subsequent developments. A favourable outcome must rest on observable facts; an unfavourable one cannot merely repeat the initial facts without addressing what happened during the measure.

Paragraph 5 provides for a specific entry in the single national database, barring access by private signatories to the agreements under Article 83-bis, and notification to the registry of the court competent for prevention. These are specific information-circulation rules, not absolute secrecy over the measure’s existence. Communications by the business to customers and financiers must be accurate and proportionate to purpose, without attributing disqualifying effects the measure does not have.

A different corrective was introduced in 2025 by Article 94.1 for sole proprietorships where disqualifying effects remove the proprietor’s and family’s means of subsistence. The limitation operates on application, within statutory grounds and limits, for one year subject to extension; it is neither collaborative prevention nor annulment of the adverse notice. Constitutional Court judgment No. 175/2025 examined the new framework and highlighted its function in relation to sole proprietorships.⁵⁷

References to the disqualifying grounds in Article 67(8) must take account of Constitutional Court judgment No. 178/2021, which removed the automatic consequence of convictions for aggravated fraud against the State and fraud to obtain public funding. Reproducing the text without its constitutional update may deny protection through an automatic rule no longer in force. The subsistence corrective does not, however, replace risk assessment: it meets an additional need concerning the sustainability of effects on the individual.⁵⁸

32. Judicial supervision and its distinction from administration under Article 34

Article 34-bis concerns occasional facilitation through its reference to Article 34, where circumstances indicate a concrete risk of Mafia infiltration capable of influencing activity. Judicial supervision differs from judicial administration under Article 34, which allows deeper management intervention. Calling the professional appointed under supervision an administrator does not automatically confer the substitutive powers of the other measure.⁵⁹

Paragraph 2 sets a term of one to three years and distinguishes two forms. Subparagraph (a) requires reporting of acts and transactions to the specified public recipients; the ordinary threshold is seven thousand euros unless the court sets a higher amount. Notification must occur within ten days of the act and, in any event, by 31 January for acts in the preceding year. This last provision is not a general option to postpone all reporting until January.

Subparagraph (b) provides for appointment of a delegated judge and judicial administrator, who reports at least every two months to that judge and the public prosecutor. This is the form referenced for access at the request of a disqualified business. Periodic reports must reveal how the activity operates and progress against the risks: a list of documents acquired is not an assessment of the changes’ effectiveness.

The order must identify the professional’s tasks and requirements governing activity. Ordinary management remains with the business within those limits; the administrator supervises, prompts and reports under the mandate. If the actual programme requires business decisions to be made instead of corporate bodies, the legal basis for that power and possible grounds for the stronger measure must be considered, avoiding creation of substitutive administration merely through supervision terminology.

33. Requirements, authorisations and verification powers in judicial supervision

Article 34-bis(3) allows the court to require authorisation for changes to registered office, name, objects and corporate bodies, as well as mergers and other transformations. It also provides information flows to the judicial administrator, advance information on financing, organisational measures and other initiatives specifically intended to prevent infiltration. The final clause is broad but remains purpose-bound and requires requirements proportionate to the established risk.⁶⁰

Comparison with Article 32 is instructive. Here, the legislature establishes a system of acts subject to authorisation, while Article 32(3) suspends shareholders’ meeting powers. Automatically importing either regime into the other is incorrect. Even within judicial supervision, the order must be read: statutory availability of a requirement does not establish that it was actually imposed in that case.

Paragraph 4 allows the court to authorise judicial police officers and agents to access business and public offices, professional practices, banks and other listed parties to acquire information and documents. This is the authority’s power, exercised through the specified persons; it does not confer a general independent search or compulsory acquisition power on the judicial administrator. The professional’s information requests must be traced to the order and applicable provisions.

Breach of requirements or the emergence of Article 34 grounds may lead to judicial administration. The court must assess the conduct and overall situation: an isolated formal default and persistent subjection to an external centre do not necessarily carry the same meaning. Reports must also explain the reasons for non-compliance and effects on the programme.

A criminal-law aspect must also be considered expressly. Article 76(6) of the Code provides one to four years’ imprisonment for omission of the reporting duties referenced in Article 34-bis(2)(a), textually referring them to the judicial administrator; conviction entails confiscation of assets purchased and payments received for which notification was omitted. Linking that reference to the recipient of information identified by the provision requires precise identification of the alleged obligation. This is not a general criminal provision covering every departure from the programme, nor a sanction transferable by analogy to Article 94-bis obligations or experts’ directions. Separate preventive assessment of non-compliance does not remove the legality and culpability requirements of any offence.⁶¹

Paragraph 5 governs the proprietor’s revocation application, with a hearing fixed within ten days and a decision under Article 127 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. Supervision is therefore not a restriction immune from review until expiry. Changed grounds must be capable of being placed before the judge, distinguishing early revocation from final programme assessment and the consequences of a successful outcome.

34. Voluntary access and the findings required of the court

Paragraph 6 permits a business subject to adverse anti-mafia information, which has challenged that decision, to request supervision with appointment of an administrator from the preventive measures court. The court hears the competent district prosecutor, the prefect issuing the information and other interested parties under Article 127 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. Approval depends on the measure’s grounds: application is not an unconditional entitlement to suspension of disqualifying effects.⁶²

Criminal Joint Divisions judgment No. 46898/2019 clarified the relevance of the prognosis for the business’s recovery and recognised challenges to refusal through appeal and subsequent cassation on points of law. Assessment concerns the substance of facilitation and actual opportunities for disengagement. This requires a credible business plan supported by reconstruction of processes and resources to change them, rather than a generic statement of willingness to cooperate.⁶³

A significant update is Joint Divisions judgment No. 21077, filed on 8 June 2026. According to the Court of Cassation’s official summary, once the adverse notice and pending challenge are verified, the preventive measures judge must refuse the application if, within their functions, they establish that no Mafia infiltration risk exists. Supervision therefore cannot be imposed solely to neutralise an administrative decision’s effects where the substantive ground for the measure is absent.⁶⁴

A delicate practical issue follows. The business may dispute the risk before the administrative court while seeking supervision under the different assessment required by law. Its submissions must present consistent facts without confusing a subsidiary request for a preventive pathway with an admission of criminal liability. After the 2026 ruling, an application cannot sustainably be framed as a mere procedural benefit independent of any assessment of risk.

Refusal because risk is absent does not annul the adverse notice. It makes timely communication of that finding in administrative litigation and the prefect’s updating procedure more important, under their respective rules. The system may thus create tension between assessments by different authorities; that tension must be addressed through reasoning, remedies and updating, rather than giving judicial supervision general jurisdiction to review the prefect’s act.

35. Suspension of disqualifying effects and participation in tenders

Article 34-bis(7) attaches suspension of the period under Article 92(2) and effects under Article 94 to an order for Article 34 judicial administration or judicial supervision. The effect arises from admission to the measure, rather than merely filing an application. This is decisive during a tender, contract signature or performance: procedural strategy must consider the actual timing of the order.⁶⁵

Suspension is not annulment of the adverse notice and does not erase every other disqualifying ground unrelated to the anti-mafia risk considered. Other eligibility requirements, independent exclusion grounds and compliance with the procedure’s conditions remain to be checked. The professional and business must accurately communicate admission, its scope and any changes, avoiding declarations describing the adverse notice as non-existent.

Article 94(2) of Legislative Decree No. 36/2023 is also decisive for public contracts. For the exclusion ground connected with attempted infiltration under Article 84(4), it provides that exclusion does not operate where the business has been admitted to judicial supervision by the award date. It is therefore insufficient simply to repeat, without engaging with the current Code, that admission affects only tenders begun afterwards. The procedure’s temporal rules, the timing of admission and the position of acts already adopted must be examined.⁶⁶

This rule does not automatically reopen a definitively concluded tender or revive an already terminated contract. The effect of an exclusion already imposed and remedies to challenge it must also be examined in the particular case. The award deadline identifies an important statutory condition, but does not replace analysis of the procedural sequence and protection sought in time.

For the economic operator, an accurate chronology is essential: notification of the adverse notice, challenge, supervision application, admission, communications to the contracting authority and tender acts. Without this reconstruction, general reference to business remediation risks concealing the decisive issue, which may concern when an effect arose.

36. Successful completion of supervision after Constitutional Court judgment No. 109/2025

Before the 2025 constitutional ruling, successful completion of supervision could cause immediate revival of disqualifying effects pending the prefect’s assessment. This was particularly problematic: a business that had successfully completed its programme risked another interruption precisely on exit. Judgment No. 109/2025 declared Article 34-bis(7) unconstitutional insofar as it failed to continue suspension until completion of the procedure updating the adverse notice.⁶⁷

This effect concerns successful completion, rather than every termination of supervision. Revocation for non-compliance, transition to a stronger measure or expiry without a corresponding assessment cannot be equated without examination to the case decided by the Court. The complete closing decision must be obtained and its operative part and reasoning read.

The decision preserves the prefect’s role. A favourable judicial outcome does not automatically produce clearance or exhaust assessment of additional or subsequent elements. The prefect must nevertheless address the programme actually completed and the court’s findings. Confirmation of the adverse notice that merely repeats initial data without evaluating changes does not account for the current situation.

In practice, the final file should facilitate that assessment: original requirements, documented implementation, review results, changes in people and relationships, remaining anomalies and the closing decision. The continuity secured by the constitutional judgment protects the time needed for updating; it does not justify inertia by those responsible for initiating or concluding it.

37. Relationships between Article 32 and judicial supervision after the 2021 reform

Coordination requires distinguishing the provision’s versions. In the text introduced in 2017, Article 34-bis(7) expressly mentioned suspension of Article 32(10) measures. The 2021 rewrite replaced that reference with suspension of the period under Article 92(2), retaining suspension of Article 94 effects. Presenting the former automatic mechanism as still expressly in force means using an outdated provision.⁶⁸

Nor does Article 32(5) automatically resolve every case: it mentions confiscation, seizure and judicial administration of the business without naming judicial supervision. Administration and supervision are not interchangeable. Supervision’s absence from the list does not itself establish, however, that every prefectural administration must continue unchanged alongside the new measure. The effects of suspending the adverse notice, the administration’s basis and objectives, transferred powers and the proportionality of concurrent measures must still be examined.

The solution requires concrete coordination of decisions. The prefect must assess whether the new situation affects the measure’s necessity and scope; the court must know the business’s existing governance. Two appointments seeking data, imposing procedures and affecting the same decisions may be compatible in some respects and conflicting in others. Keeping both requires an explanation based on additional functions, rather than the mere fact that they originate from different authorities.

The problem changes where Article 32 was applied for corruption matters independent of Mafia risk. Suspension of disqualifying effects does not necessarily remove that factual basis. Even then, the programme must be coordinated: one organisational model may address different risks, whereas duplicating advisers, procedures and requests without coordination may obstruct remediation.

The Council of State’s Plenary Assembly, in decision No. 7/2023, held that admission to supervision does not necessarily suspend administrative proceedings concerning the adverse notice. The ruling is central to the autonomy of assessments and the relationship between proceedings; it must not become a general rule automatically revoking or preserving every Article 32 measure. The distinction between litigation over the act and organisation of management remains necessary.⁶⁹

ANAC’s 2026 provisions consider existing measures and conditions potentially leading to closure during the preliminary stage of the proposal procedure. This also seeks to avoid unnecessary intervention. It concerns that stage and power, however: it cannot be used as a new statutory rule indiscriminately extinguishing prefectural administrations already imposed.⁷⁰

38. Transition from prefectural collaboration to judicial supervision

An express rule governs the relationship between Articles 94-bis and 34-bis. The court assesses whether to replace collaborative prevention with supervision under paragraph 2(b); if it does, collaborative measures end. Time already spent may be considered in setting supervision’s duration. “May” does not establish mandatory arithmetic deduction, but requires the work already done to be taken seriously in assessing the new programme.⁷¹

The transition should not restart the inventory of already documented problems. The prefect’s requirements, reports, materials and review results must be handed over subject to disclosure rules. The new administrator must distinguish what has been done, what has merely been declared and what needs further checking. Continuity of the professional may be considered under the new appointment rules but does not automatically follow from termination of the administrative measure.

For fees and expenses, transition requires closure of the previous assignment and identification of the new one’s basis. Keeping two fees for the same work merely because administrative and judicial files formally remain open is incorrect. Likewise, continuation of an organisational obligation imposed by the court is not continuation of the prefectural assignment that has ended.

Article 34-bis(7) also provides that the decision is assessed for application of Article 94-bis over the following five years. It creates neither automatic five-year collaborative monitoring, incompatible with Article 94-bis’s own duration, nor an inevitable new measure. It preserves the earlier decision’s informational relevance and requires a fresh assessment under the prescribed conditions.

39. Remuneration of the administrator in judicial supervision

The rules for an Article 94-bis expert cannot be transferred to Article 34-bis supervision without argument. The fifty per cent ceiling is expressly provided for that expert and the Article 32 expert; it does not appear as a general rule in the judicial supervision provision. Similarity of some activities does not replace the legal basis for determining remuneration.⁷²

Presidential Decree No. 177/2015 was designed for custody, preservation and administration of assets under preventive seizure. Applying it to non-confiscatory measures has required systemic interpretation. Guidelines issued by the National Council of Chartered Accountants and Accounting Experts on 17 June 2024 support using the regulation through coordination with Articles 34 and 42 of the Anti-Mafia Code and describe differing practices. This is a professional contribution, not a new statutory tariff.⁷³

The issue also concerns the criterion within the regulation. Supervision does not necessarily coincide either with direct business management or merely administering a business operated by third parties. Using either parameter must make the interpretative step explicit and explain the treatment of complexity, duration, frequency of checks and responsibility. A non-substitutive role is not by itself simple or undemanding.

The criterion should be determined early, with a cost estimate, advance-payment rules and identification of necessary documents. For costs borne by the business and any shortfall, the legal basis adopted by the court and coordination with cost provisions must be checked: identical State advance-funding arrangements in every case should not be presented as undisputed. Different initiation, public or at the business’s request, also forms part of the interpretative debate without authorising intuitive solutions.

The account of professional work should make it understandable without atomising it into unrelated services. Relevant elements include the programme, checks performed, problems resolved, reports and contribution to the outcome, subject to the adopted legal parameter. Success cannot be the sole remuneration criterion: diligent supervision may reveal that remediation is impossible, and creating a financial incentive to present an unfavourable position favourably would be unreasonable.

40. The remediation programme and evidence of change

The four professional roles considered have different powers but share a problem: demonstrating organisational change. Replacing people and adopting procedures are observable events; reducing risk requires another step. It must be checked whether different people now decide, controls function and problematic relationships have actually ended or ceased to exert influence.

A useful programme should begin with established mechanisms. If the risk comes from an intermediary controlling customer access, replacing the board alone may be insufficient. If it operates through recruitment or subcontract allocation, selection, authorisation and performance monitoring must be examined. If it depends on opaque financing, the source, conditions, repayments and financier’s ability to influence decisions must be reconstructed.

For each shortcoming, the required result, responsible business officer, deadline, resources and evidence must be identified. Formalisation can be concise provided it allows the pathway to be reconstructed. A small business need not reproduce a listed company’s structure, but does need workable controls such as separate authorisations, independent expenditure checks or traceability of decisive communications.

Reviews should include samples of real transactions, interviews with those applying procedures and examination of exceptions. Purchasing rules are ineffective if systematically bypassed through unexplained urgency. A supervisory body is not operational if it receives only documents prepared after the authority’s request. Reports must explain these limits rather than equating implementation with the number of documents approved.

Economic sustainability accompanies prevention. Reducing risky relationships, payment times, contract continuity and oversight costs must be examined together. A programme removing a supplier without considering replacement may interrupt a service; one preserving every relationship indefinitely on economic grounds may leave risk intact. Decisions must explain the actual compromise and the deadline for reviewing it.

The final outcome should be assessable even by someone who did not follow the assignment daily. This is the value of an orderly file linking every conclusion to identifiable evidence. A professional report should not demand trust in its author personally; it should provide reasons to accept or challenge the assessment.

41. Judicial protection, confidentiality and relationships with other procedures

The system requires correct identification of the act to challenge and the remedy. A prefect’s order, an administrative requirement and a judicial decision belong to different pathways. An expert’s direction may also differ in nature according to the enabling provision, content and actual impact. Not every professional communication is an immediately prejudicial decision; not every obligation can be removed from review by calling it a suggestion. Substantive classification is the first step in defence.

In administrative litigation, judicial supervision does not replace a challenge to the adverse notice’s legality. Conversely, an application to the preventive measures court cannot simply reproduce annulment grounds without addressing the requested measure’s conditions and programme. The pathways must use consistent facts and formulate requests compatible with each court’s jurisdiction. Professional coordination is essential where administrative, criminal and corporate representation is entrusted to different advisers.

Insolvency procedures also require independent coordination. Preventive administration does not resolve insolvency or automatically suspend corporate bodies’ duties to creditors. Opening insolvency proceedings, accessing restructuring tools or having a court-appointed insolvency commissioner changes the context and may affect asset availability and management powers. Examination must concern the specific decisions, avoiding assimilation of roles sharing the name commissioner but performing different functions.⁷⁴

Document access, investigative confidentiality and data protection must be governed by necessity and relevance. The professional needs sufficient information for the task, but appointment alone gives no unlimited right to every database. Sending reports to banks, customers or trade associations requires checking the basis and usefulness of disclosure. Scientific contributions and teaching cases must anonymise combinations of details identifying the business, as well as comply with judicial anonymisation orders.⁷⁵

Another issue concerns IT tools for analysing accounts and relationships. They can identify recurring transactions or anomalies, but results must be verifiable and traceable to original data. Risk assessment and requirements remain with the competent persons. Automated processing justifies neither indiscriminate disclosure of confidential information nor conclusions without a reconstructable reasoning process.

42. Governance of the economy and choices still to be made

Introduction of voluntary judicial supervision cannot simply be described as removing the prefect’s power over adverse notices. The prefect continues administrative prevention and updates information; the administrative court reviews legality; the preventive measures court assesses grounds and the judicial programme. The legislature linked admission to suspension of effects, creating strong interaction between powers that remain distinct.

This choice can be criticised. The system multiplies decision-making forums, times and costs; it may produce differing assessments of identical facts and make it hard for a business to understand which decision governs the next stage. It would nevertheless be inaccurate to infer from supervision’s existence that prefectural measures had been found ineffective, or attribute reform to an unidentified party’s interest. Legislative reasons require preparatory materials and statutory design; effectiveness requires verifiable results.

Parliamentary materials offer a narrower, documentable indication. In the presentation to the Chamber of Deputies’ Justice Committee on 19 July 2017, supervision is described as less intrusive than judicial administration, preserving business management while entrusting internal verification of requirements to a court-appointed person. The stated perspective is graduation of intervention according to facilitation’s occasional nature. This supports reading the new instrument as developing non-confiscatory prevention; it does not alone document an intention to penalise prefects’ ineffectiveness or transfer administrative review of adverse notices to the preventive measures court.⁷⁶

During parliamentary examination of the 2021 decree, Article 94-bis was described as an alternative to adverse notices for occasional facilitation, with controls allowing the business to continue operating under State oversight. The same account explains the prefect’s participation in judicial proceedings and inter-authority communications. I infer an intention to diversify and connect responses, rather than a clear progression towards removing administrative power. Whether the text achieved adequate coordination remains debatable: intention inferred from preparatory materials and technical success of the rules are different assessments.⁷⁷

The systemic reading proposed here identifies progressively differentiated responses. Article 32 originally protects continuity of public contractual relationships and now permits broader organisational intervention; judicial supervision establishes a pathway under court oversight; Article 94-bis allows the prefect to address occasional facilitation without necessarily using the adverse notice’s exclusionary effect. Collaborative prevention may thus prevent remediation from beginning only after economic relationships have been damaged. This is a potential of the institution, not proof that every application achieves it.

Overlap between Article 32 and Article 94-bis experts is real for some activities but partial in law. Grounds, procedure, relationship with the contract, duration and prescriptive powers differ. Converging business-analysis methods is useful; assimilating powers risks creating unauthorised powers or weakening those expressly granted. Any legislative intervention should consciously choose which differences to preserve and which to overcome.

Measuring effectiveness would require at least start and completion times, frequency of successful outcomes, transitions to stronger measures, subsequent relapses, continuity of relationships and costs. These data should be considered by business size, sector and initial risk intensity. Clearance numbers alone do not measure prevention quality; adverse notice numbers alone do not measure collaboration’s failure. Comparisons between measures must also recognise that they select different situations.

Priorities for comprehensive reform appear concrete. First, define residual corporate powers under Article 32, expressly regulating acts necessary to preserve the business. Second, address duration and scope of measures now independent of individual contracts. Third, establish coherent remuneration distinguishing management, supervision and support, rather than leaving solutions to parameters designed for different situations. Fourth, address transitions and concurrent measures, with communication duties and timely decisions on terminating mandates and asset restrictions.

Much can already be improved in practice: more precise orders, verifiable programmes, reports distinguishing facts from assessments and reasoning responsive to business change. The professional has a decisive coordinating role, provided they recognise the mandate’s limits and make the work understandable to different authorities. This perspective continues the reflection already devoted to the first ten years of prefectural administration of businesses.⁷⁸

The central issue is not abstractly deciding which authority should prevail. It is designing decisions that reconcile protection of the lawful economy, freedom of enterprise and business continuity in a reasoned, reviewable and temporary arrangement. Prevention gains credibility when it explains why it intervenes, what it requires to change and which facts support restoring the business’s full autonomy.

Notes

1. Article 32, Decree-Law No. 90 of 24 June 2014, converted by Law No. 114 of 11 August 2014; Articles 34-bis and 94-bis, Legislative Decree No. 159 of 6 September 2011. The 2014 provision must be read with its 2015 and 2021 amendments. Links in these notes lead to the specified sources; editorial reproductions are identified as such. Article 32 on the tax justice portal. ↗ ↩

2. Article 1(704), Law No. 208 of 28 December 2015, for healthcare; Article 12(12-ter), Decree-Law No. 121 of 10 September 2021, converted by Law No. 156 of 9 November 2021, for amendments to Article 32(1), (7) and (8). “Also” was inserted in subparagraph (b), not (a). Consolidated Article 32. ↗ ↩

3. Article 11, Law No. 161 of 17 October 2017, introducing Article 34-bis; Articles 47–49, Decree-Law No. 152 of 6 November 2021, converted by Law No. 233 of 29 December 2021; Article 3, Decree-Law No. 48 of 11 April 2025, converted by Law No. 80 of 9 June 2025, for Article 94.1. For effects on judicial supervision, see also Constitutional Court judgment No. 109/2025, examined in section 36. Article 47 of the 2021 reform. ↗ ↩

4. First ANAC–Ministry of the Interior Guidelines, 15 July 2014; Second Guidelines, 27 January 2015; Third Guidelines, 19 January 2016, Official Gazette No. 26 of 2 February 2016; Fourth ANAC–Ministry of the Interior–Ministry of Health Guidelines, 4 August 2016, Official Gazette No. 194 of 20 August 2016; Fifth Guidelines, 16 October 2018, Official Gazette No. 254 of 31 October 2018. Instrument and Gazette details distinguish signature and publication dates. Third Guidelines; Fourth Guidelines; Fifth Guidelines. ↗ ↗ ↗ ↩

5. President of ANAC, Provisions governing the procedure leading to proposals for extraordinary measures under Article 32, 21 July 2026; notice in Official Gazette No. 210 of 10 September 2026, code 26A04656. Entry into force is the day after publication; Article 22(4) limits application to proceedings initiated thereafter. The text reproduced on ANCE’s website was consulted. Provisions of 21 July 2026. ↗ ↩

6. Constitutional Court judgment No. 101 of 23 May 2023, reasoning on the Fifth Guidelines’ nature and the absence of a grant of rule-making power. The questions were held unfounded on the interpretation stated in the reasoning; the decision is not one of inadmissibility. Judgment text. ↗ ↩

7. Article 32(1) lists Articles 317, 318, 319, 319-bis, 319-ter, 319-quater, 320, 322, 322-bis, 346-bis, 353 and 353-bis of the Criminal Code. For Article 318, Law No. 3 of 9 January 2019; for the revision of Article 346-bis, Article 1 of Law No. 114 of 9 August 2024. Law No. 114/2024 must not be confused with the law converting Decree-Law No. 90/2014, also numbered 114. Law No. 114/2024 in the Official Gazette. ↗ ↩

8. Council of State, Section III, No. 867 of 4 February 2019. The reference concerns the actual structure of relationships between operators and the public contract examined in the decision, rather than a general automatic extension to every supply-chain business. Judgment reproduced by EIUS. ↗ ↩

9. Council of Administrative Justice for the Sicilian Region, Judicial Section, No. 591 of 21 July 2025. The institutional notice concerning territorial jurisdiction where a central purchasing body and client administration are involved was consulted; no arguments beyond the summary are attributed to the decision. Administrative Justice institutional notice. ↗ ↩

10. President of ANAC’s provisions of 21 July 2026, particularly Articles 6, 11–13, 19 and 22: preliminary stage, procedure and corrective initiatives, relationships with the prefecture and transitional rules. Closing the proposal procedure differs from revoking the prefectural measure. Provisions text. ↗ ↩

11. Article 32(1)(a) and (b), and (2). Duration depends on the functional needs specified by law and cannot exceed final acceptance testing. Its relationship with the 2021 expansion requires the interpretation discussed in the text. Article 32. ↗ ↩

12. Article 12(12-ter), Decree-Law No. 121/2021, converted by Law No. 156/2021; Constitutional Court judgment No. 101/2023. The operative constitutional ruling concerns Article 32(7) and (10) in relation to profit allocation: it does not generally decide the legality of every management measure extending across the business. Judgment No. 101/2023. ↗ ↩

13. Article 32(2) and (8); Article 39(1), Legislative Decree No. 270 of 8 July 1999; Articles 2 and 3, Ministerial Decree No. 60 of 10 April 2013, on professional and integrity requirements. Requirements must be checked for the specific eligibility category under the regulation. Decree No. 60/2013 in the Official Gazette. ↗ ↩

14. Article 32(2-bis) and (10-bis); Fourth Guidelines of 4 August 2016, paragraphs 2 and 3. The reference to the national list of persons eligible for director-general appointments is expressed as the ordinary course, allowing reasoned recourse to other professionals meeting the requirements. Fourth Guidelines. ↗ ↩

15. M. Irrera, Il Decreto Anticorruzione e l’amministratore di nomina prefettizia: una complessa sfida interpretativa, Eighth Annual Conference of the Orizzonti del diritto commerciale Association, 17–18 February 2017, provisional text, particularly sections 5 and 6, pp. 26–29. The proposed interpretation predates the 2021 statutory expansion. Contribution text. ↗ ↩

16. For joint-stock companies, Articles 2364, 2365, 2446 and 2447 of the Civil Code; for limited liability companies, Articles 2479, 2482-bis and 2482-ter; for dissolution grounds and consequential obligations, Articles 2484–2486. The text argues that Article 32 does not generally give commissioners powers reserved to shareholders; a resolution’s actual feasibility requires consideration of the order and paragraph 3. ↩

17. Articles 2403 et seq. and 2477 of the Civil Code; Legislative Decree No. 39 of 27 January 2010 for statutory audit; Articles 6 and 7, Legislative Decree No. 231 of 8 June 2001. For individual information rights of a limited liability company shareholder, particularly Article 2476(2) of the Civil Code. These roles do not have identical objects, powers or responsibilities. ↩

18. Article 32(7), and Articles 2447-bis et seq. of the Civil Code. Dedicated accounts and a bank account do not by themselves produce asset-segregation effects under special legislation. The restriction on profits must be distinguished from the treatment of other business resources. Fund rules in the Fifth Guidelines. ↗ ↩

19. Council of State, Section IV, No. 143 of 20 January 2015. The decision examines Article 32 measures and protection concerning the award; administration by commissioners does not generally cure the procedure. Judgment reproduced by EIUS. ↗ ↩

20. Article 32(7); Fifth Guidelines of 16 October 2018. The law permits determination by estimation. Recourse to an external valuation is treated as a technical choice requiring justification, rather than a general statutory prerequisite. Fifth Guidelines in the Official Gazette. ↗ ↩

21. Article 32(1)(b-bis) and (7), as amended by Article 12(12-ter), Decree-Law No. 121/2021, converted by Law No. 156/2021. The statutory ten per cent withholding belongs to the instrument in subparagraph (b-bis). Consolidated text. ↗ ↩

22. Fifth Guidelines of 16 October 2018, sections on fund management, survival after the appointment ends and allocation of funds. Directions on transfer following adverse anti-mafia information must be reread in light of Constitutional Court judgment No. 101/2023. Fifth Guidelines. ↗ ↩

23. Constitutional Court judgment No. 101 of 23 May 2023, on coordinated reading of Article 32(7) and (10) with rules on performance rendered and benefit obtained. Numerical examples are explanatory and do not reproduce calculations from an adjudicated case. Judgment text. ↗ ↩

24. Article 32(4), Decree-Law No. 90/2014. Intentional misconduct or gross negligence expressly concerns “any adverse economic results”. Other bases of liability must be examined against the conduct and function, avoiding automatic extensions. Article 32. ↗ ↩

25. Article 32(6) and (7); Article 8, Legislative Decree No. 14 of 4 February 2010; Presidential Decree No. 177 of 7 October 2015; Third Guidelines of 19 January 2016, Official Gazette No. 26 of 2 February 2016, sections on calculation base, increases, panels, expenses and advances. The contracting authority certifies the report on residual contract value. Third Guidelines; Article 3 of Presidential Decree No. 177. ↗ ↗ ↩

26. Fourth Guidelines of 4 August 2016, sections 4–6 and table 1: maximum annual funding, basic fee, increases, panel appointments, experts and assistants. The rules distinguish remuneration from expense reimbursement and require adjustments to be applied according to their function. Text and table in the official publication. ↗ ↩

27. Constitutional Court judgment No. 135 of 28 July 2025, filed on 28 July 2025. It concerns the public remuneration ceiling and temporal effects. Possible implications for prefectural remuneration criteria are presented as a coordination issue, rather than an effect directly decided by the Court. Official judgment entry and text. ↗ ↩

28. Article 32(8) and (9); Second Guidelines of 27 January 2015; Third Guidelines of 19 January 2016, section on support and monitoring. The provision expressly entrusts experts with issuing operational requirements. Article 32. ↗ ↩

29. Article 32(8), as amended in 2021. Reference to Article 2359 of the Civil Code requires identification of control, without confusion with every economic or shareholding connection. Consolidated text. ↗ ↩

30. Council of State, Section III, order No. 7971 of 4 October 2024; Court of Justice of the European Union, order of 28 April 2025, Case C-656/24, ECLI:EU:C:2025:314. The request was held manifestly inadmissible: the order does not decide general compatibility of Italian legislation on the merits. Official EUR-Lex identifier. ↗ ↩

31. Article 32(9); Article 94-bis(2); policy guidance approved by Ministerial Decree of 2 October 2025, preamble, pp. 1–2, and point 3, pp. 5–6. The document states the analogy between the two experts’ functions but notes limits on general extension of the Third Guidelines in its preamble. Use for Article 32 monitoring after a contract remains an interpretative reconstruction, rather than the decree’s express scope. Institutional publication of the decree and annexes. ↗ ↩

32. Article 32(10); Article 94(3), Legislative Decree No. 159/2011. Paragraph 10 requires independent reasons on urgent necessity and gives initiative to the prefect, with notification to the President of ANAC and specific agreement for healthcare. Article 32. ↗ ↩

33. Article 32(1), Decree-Law No. 90 of 24 June 2014, converted by Law No. 114 of 11 August 2014. On the supplementary criterion for paragraph 8, ANAC, Annual Report 2024, presented on 20 May 2025, section 10.2.5, pp. 251–252, referencing the Ministry of the Interior’s circular of 8 February 2017. ↩

34. Article 92(2-ter)(b), Legislative Decree No. 159 of 6 September 2011; ANAC–Ministry of the Interior, Second Guidelines of 27 January 2015, section 5, pp. 12–13. Their reference to the former Article 92(2-bis) must be coordinated with the rewrite by Decree-Law No. 152/2021. ↩

35. Article 32(10), Decree-Law No. 90/2014, in relation to Article 91(5), Legislative Decree No. 159/2011. ↩

36. ANAC, Annual Report 2024, cited above, section 10.2.6, pp. 252–253, “Jurisdiction where the disqualified economic operator changes its registered office”. The passage concerning transfer before adverse information must now be read in light of the case law cited in note 38. ↩

37. President of ANAC’s provisions of 16 September 2022, Article 18; provisions of 21 July 2026, Articles 2 and 19. Under Article 22(4), the new instrument applies to proceedings initiated after entry into force on 11 September 2026; notice in Official Gazette No. 210 of 10 September 2026. ↩

38. Article 87(2-bis), Legislative Decree No. 159/2011, introduced by Article 49-bis of Decree-Law No. 152/2021, converted by Law No. 233/2021. Council of State, Section III, No. 5306 of 2 July 2026, sections 14.3–14.10, referring to Section III judgment No. 942 of 5 February 2026 and clarifying the earlier approach in Section III judgment No. 3030 of 13 May 2020. ↩

39. Articles 1, 21-quinquies and 21-nonies, Law No. 241 of 7 August 1990. Reference to contrarius actus is confined here to powers to revisit administrative decisions, rather than assumed to be a general rule perpetuating jurisdiction. ↩

40. Article 94-bis(1)(b) and (4), Legislative Decree No. 159/2011, introduced by Article 49 of Decree-Law No. 152/2021, converted by Law No. 233/2021. ↩

41. Article 32(5) and (10). The various termination grounds must remain distinct. Judicial supervision under Article 34-bis is not named in paragraph 5’s list; coordination is examined in section 37. Provision text. ↗ ↩

42. Articles 84, 91 and 92, Legislative Decree No. 159/2011. On administrative preventive assessment, judicial supervision and updating risk, Constitutional Court judgments Nos. 101/2023 and 109/2025; Council of State, Plenary Assembly, No. 7/2023. The text distinguishes criminal liability from preventive prognosis without equating the latter to factually unsupported suspicion. ↩

43. Article 92(2-bis) et seq., as amended by Article 48 of Decree-Law No. 152/2021, converted by Law No. 233/2021. Notification excludes elements whose disclosure could prejudice the proceedings and activities specified by law; those limits require concrete application. Article 48 on the tax justice portal. ↗ ↩

44. Article 94-bis(1)(a)–(e), Legislative Decree No. 159/2011. Subparagraph (b)’s threshold is five thousand euros in the text following conversion of Decree-Law No. 152/2021. The earlier decree-law version stating seven thousand euros must not be used. Consolidated text reproduced by Brocardi. ↗ ↩

45. Article 94-bis(2) and Article 35(2-bis), Legislative Decree No. 159/2011, concerning appointment and the business-management experts’ section of the register. Comparison with Article 32(8)’s “operational requirements” rests on the differing texts conferring functions. Article 94-bis. ↗ ↩

46. Policy guidance approved by the Minister of the Interior’s decree of 2 October 2025, preamble, p. 2, on the expert’s auxiliary function and management remaining with corporate bodies. Consulted in full in the copy supplied by the author. Institutional publication. ↗ ↩

47. Lazio Regional Administrative Court, Rome, Section I-ter, interim order No. 2661 of 15 May 2025, deliberation of 13 May 2025, case No. 4675/2025. ↩

48. Article 94-bis(2), second and third sentences; Article 8, Legislative Decree No. 14/2010; Presidential Decree No. 177/2015. Primary legislation establishes the fifty per cent maximum and cost borne by the addressee. Article 94-bis. ↗ ↩

49. Minister of the Interior, decree of 2 October 2025 approving the generally applicable policy guidance on calculation of remuneration of experts appointed under Article 94-bis of Legislative Decree No. 159/2011. The one-page decree, nine-page guidance and one-page table were consulted in full in copies supplied by the author. The State Attorney General’s opinion is referenced in the preamble, without any claim to independent consultation here. Institutional page for the decree and annexes. ↗ ↩

50. 2025 policy guidance, point 1(a) and point 2, pp. 3–5. The formulation on gross assets and adjustments is reproduced from the document. The issue identified concerns correct classification of adjustments, rather than departure from the ministerial method. The report must make reconciliation between accounting data and estimated values verifiable. Guidance and annexes. ↗ ↩

51. 2025 policy guidance, point 3 and accompanying table. Bands and rates: up to €16,227.08, 8.4–9.8%; above that amount to €24,340.62, 7–8.4%; to €40,567.68, 5.95–6.65%; to €81,135.38, 4.9–5.6%; to €405,676.89, 3.85–4.55%; to €811,353.79, 2.8–3.5%; to €2,434,061.37, 0.6–1.26%; above, 0.325–0.63%. Each rate applies only to its own band. The result is subject to the ceiling of no more than 50%. The example’s data are entirely hypothetical. Rounding to cents, explained in the text, first concerns the table total and then subsequent components. Table publication. ↗ ↩

52. 2025 policy guidance, point 5, pp. 7–8, on designation, acceptance, documentation, report and initial determination with possible adjustment; point 6, pp. 8–9, on quarterly advances and the 60–70% deposit. The deposit securing payment differs from payment of remuneration to the professional. Guidance and annexes. ↗ ↩

53. 2025 policy guidance, point 2, p. 5, and point 4, p. 7. The former references 5% of net profits and 0.50% of gross revenue for the described businesses; the latter excludes Article 3(4), Presidential Decree No. 177/2015. The proposed reconciliation is interpretative and requires reasons in the implementing decision. Policy guidance. ↗ ↩

54. 2025 policy guidance, point 7, p. 9. The second transitional case requires that the quantification report has not been submitted and provides notification of the guidance and consent by the professional and business. It does not amount to indiscriminate retroactive redetermination. Policy guidance. ↗ ↩

55. Article 49(2-bis), Decree-Law No. 152 of 6 November 2021, converted by Law No. 233 of 29 December 2021. The provision is found in the introducing legislation, rather than as an internal paragraph of Article 94-bis. The consolidated text on the Perugia Prosecutor General’s website, p. 80, was consulted. Consolidated text from an institutional source. ↗ ↩

56. Article 94-bis(4) and (5). Clearance requires the prefect’s finding described by the provision; the database entry has a specific access regime. Consolidated text. ↗ ↩

57. Article 94.1, Legislative Decree No. 159/2011, introduced by Article 3, Decree-Law No. 48/2025, converted by Law No. 80/2025; Constitutional Court judgment No. 175/2025. This mechanism differs from assessment of the adverse notice’s legality and collaborative prevention. Constitutional judgment text. ↗ ↩

58. Constitutional Court judgment No. 178/2021 on Article 67(8), Legislative Decree No. 159/2011, concerning Articles 640, second paragraph, point 1, and 640-bis of the Criminal Code. References to legislation must include the constitutional ruling’s effects. Official judgment text. ↗ ↩

59. Articles 34 and 34-bis(1) and (2), Legislative Decree No. 159/2011. The seven-thousand-euro threshold and ten-day deadline belong to Article 34-bis(2)(a). Subparagraph (b) requires reporting at least every two months. Consolidated text reproduced by Brocardi. ↗ ↩

60. Article 34-bis(3)–(5), Legislative Decree No. 159/2011: content of the order, checks through judicial police, possible transition to judicial administration and revocation applications. The authorisation power under paragraph 3(a) belongs to the delegated judge. Article 34-bis. ↗ ↩

61. Article 76(6), Legislative Decree No. 159/2011, as replaced by Article 24 of Law No. 161/2017. It references Article 34-bis(2)(a)’s reporting duties and mentions the judicial administrator; the text flags the coordination problem without extending criminal scope by analogy. Current text reproduced. ↗ ↩

62. Article 34-bis(6), as amended by Article 47 of Decree-Law No. 152/2021, expressly including the prefect among those to be heard. A private application concerns supervision under paragraph 2(b). Reform text. ↗ ↩

63. Court of Cassation, Criminal Joint Divisions, hearing of 26 September 2019, filed 19 November 2019, No. 46898, particularly reasoning on recovery prognosis and challenges. The Court classifies the application as an appeal and transmits the file to the Rome Court of Appeal. Decision reproduced by EIUS. ↗ ↩

64. Court of Cassation, Criminal Joint Divisions, hearing of 11 December 2025, filed 8 June 2026, No. 21077. Reference rests on the official “Outcome in brief” summary published by the Court of Cassation on 9 June 2026; no specific further reconstruction is attributed to the full reasoning, not examined here. Court of Cassation official summary. ↗ ↩

65. Article 34-bis(7), as resulting from Decree-Law No. 152/2021 and Constitutional Court judgment No. 109/2025. Suspension is linked to the implementing order; the application alone does not produce its effects. Article 34-bis with a note on the constitutional ruling. ↗ ↩

66. Article 94(2), Legislative Decree No. 36 of 31 March 2023, on judicial supervision ordered by the award date; Articles 225 and 226 for transitional rules where relevant. This differs from Article 94 of the Anti-Mafia Code, which has a different object. Public Contracts Code reproduced in the Official Gazette. ↗ ↩

67. Constitutional Court judgment No. 109 of 17 July 2025 on Article 34-bis(7): continuation of suspension of the adverse notice’s effects after successful supervision until completion of updating under Article 91(5). The prefect retains jurisdiction over the current assessment. Official judgment text. ↗ ↩

68. Comparison between Article 34-bis(7), introduced by Article 11 of Law No. 161/2017, and the text replaced by Article 47(1)(c), Decree-Law No. 152/2021, converted by Law No. 233/2021. The new text does not repeat the reference to suspension of Article 32(10) measures. Article 47, consolidated text. ↗ ↩

69. Council of State, Plenary Assembly, No. 7 of 13 February 2023. Among other matters, it concerns the absence of mandatory suspension of administrative litigation over adverse anti-mafia information during judicial supervision and the autonomy of the respective assessments. Decision reproduced by EIUS. ↗ ↩

70. President of ANAC’s provisions of 21 July 2026, Article 6 on reasons for closing proceedings at the preliminary stage where the specified measures exist, and Article 19 on relationships with the prefect. Their scope relates to the procedure leading to a proposal. ANAC 2026 provisions. ↗ ↩

71. Article 94-bis(3) and Article 34-bis(1) and (7). Cessation is expressly connected with supervision under paragraph 2(b); time already spent may count towards duration. Assessment over the following five years does not extend collaborative prevention’s statutory duration. Article 94-bis. ↗ ↩

72. Article 34-bis, Legislative Decree No. 159/2011; for coordination, Articles 34(5) and 42 of the same decree, Article 8 of Legislative Decree No. 14/2010 and Presidential Decree No. 177/2015. Absence of an express fifty per cent ceiling in Article 34-bis prevents presenting it as a textual fee-determination rule. Regulation No. 177 on the financial documentation portal. ↗ ↩

73. National Council of Chartered Accountants and Accounting Experts, with the National Accountants’ Research Foundation, Guidelines on remuneration of judicial administrators and ANBSC assistants, 17 June 2024, section 2.2, pp. 12–14. The document describes differing practices and proposes interpretations for non-confiscatory measures; it is not a legislative source. Professional document. ↗ ↩

74. Legislative Decree No. 14 of 12 January 2019, as currently in force, to be coordinated with the actual decisions adopted; Article 2086 of the Civil Code on adequate organisational arrangements and timely detection of distress. The text proposes neither automatic priority in insolvency nor general suspension of debts solely through Article 32. ↩

75. Regulation (EU) 2016/679, particularly Articles 5, 6, 9 and 10 according to data categories and legal basis; Legislative Decree No. 196/2003; secrecy and access rules applicable to each procedure. Publication of the Lazio Regional Administrative Court case is also subject to the anonymisation order in the supplied decision. ↩

76. Chamber of Deputies, Seventeenth Legislature, Second Committee, record of 19 July 2017, presentation of the Anti-Mafia Code reform proposal, section concerning Article 11 and new Article 34-bis. The reference concerns purposes expressed on that occasion, rather than an exhaustive account of every position during passage. Parliamentary record. ↗ ↩

77. Chamber of Deputies, Eighteenth Legislature, Second Committee, record of 9 December 2021, examination of Decree-Law No. 152/2021, Articles 47–49. This is a source on the reform’s design: the original seven-thousand-euro threshold described does not replace the five-thousand threshold resulting from conversion and used in this article. Parliamentary record. ↗ ↩

78. A. Tuzza, I commissariamenti prefettizi delle imprese dieci anni dopo: la legalità tra fiducia e continuità d’impresa. Il ruolo di raccordo del professionista, 13 October 2025. The present contribution independently develops organisational questions and coordination between measures. Article on the firm’s website. ↗ ↩