Certification in the field of Governance
There has been considerable innovation, in recent years, in the field of Corporate Governance, in particular the inclusion of Corporate Administrative Responsibility, with or without legal status, in the Italian legal system, through legislative decree 231/2001, in force since 4 July 2001.
Heavy sanctions, interdictory and/or pecuniary, are inflicted on organisations following particular offences/crimes committed by an organisation's directors, managers, employees or even third parties. Thus, an organisation runs the risk of eventually having to stand up, in front of the criminal judge, to answer for an extensive number of crimes which may be committed in its interest and to its advantage by any individual who belongs to the organisation.
The types of offence/crime presently significant (also in the hypothesis of attempted offence, barring what is foreseen in par. 2 of article 26 of the above-mentioned decree) as regards possible Administrative Responsibility of an organisation are grouped into seven categories:
- offences/crimes against the Public Administration (art. 24 and 25);
- offences/crimes against public trust (art. 25-bis);
- company offences/crimes (art. 25-ter);
- crimes related to terrorism and subversion of the democratic order (art. 25-quater);
- offences/crimes against individuals (art. 25-quinquies);
- mutilation of female genitals (art. 25-quater 1);
- market abuse (art. 25-sexies).
Recently, through law 146 dated 16 March 2006, also trans-national offences/crimes have been included in legislative decree 231/2001.
In order to considerably limit the risk of incurring these sanctions and in any case to cancel the possible prejudicial consequences derived from individual illicit behaviour, organisations have the right to pre-establish a dispensing circumstance provided for by the law through the adoption of a specific Management System called "Organisation, Management and Control model".
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