ITALY: Bank of Italy responds to query on implementation of EU Acquisitions Directive in Italy

Thursday May 19 2011

Further to a query submitted on the implementation in Italy of the EU Acquisitions Directive, the Bank of Italy has provided the following information:

“Directive 2007/44/EC has been transposed into Italian law by Legislative Decree 21/2010, that amended the provisions of the Consolidated Law on Banking and the Consolidated Law on Finance regarding the acquisition of qualifying holdings in banks, insurance companies, investment firms and asset management companies.

Concerning banks, the Italian Consolidated Law on Banking, as amended by Legislative Decree 21/2010, requires the Bank of Italy’s prior authorization when there is an acquisition of shares (directly or indirectly) which results, taking into account any existing holdings of shares, in an ownership interest of more than 10 percent of the voting capital of a bank (or its holding company) or which results in control of a bank or its holding company (Arts. 19(1), (3) and 22).

Before the transposition of the directive and given that the time limit for national transposition had expired, Bank of Italy published a document, which is still valid, concerning the criteria used to evaluate applications for the approval of acquisitions.

Please find the below the links to both the documents I mentioned. Unfortunately at the moment they are available only in Italian.

http://www.bancaditalia.it/vigilanza/banche/comunicati/Direttiva%202007_44_CE.pdf

http://www.bancaditalia.it/vigilanza/banche/normativa/leggi/tub;internal&action=_setlanguage.action?LANGUAGE=it “