The New Italian Super-Courts For Foreign Companies

Introduction

After a first attempt made last June by the Government was aborted, from February 22, 2014 new courts, established in a number of main cities, will have jurisdiction over proceedings involving foreign companies in some specific matters, such as intellectual property, unfair competition and corporate law.

Although some of the new provisions may not be very easily applied, the reform seems to represent a good fit for foreign companies, who could be more comfortable litigating before courts in main business centers.

Scope of the new venue rules

One of the main innovations introduced by Law Decree December 23, 2013, no. 150 (converted with modifications by the Law of February 21, 2014, no. 9) concerns the concentration in only 11 main city courts of disputes in which foreign companies are involved and that, in most cases, would otherwise fall within the competence of other (smaller) courts. For this reason the new "Super-courts" are located in cities deemed strategic to a specific geographic area: Bari, Cagliari, Catania, Genoa, Milan, Naples, Rome, Turin, Venice, Trento and Bolzano.

Not all proceedings in which the parties are foreign companies fall under the new provision. Indeed, they must concern disputes relating to:

intellectual and industrial property law unfair competition Italian and European antitrust law corporate relations claims for damages against the members of the managing or statutory auditing boards shareholder agreements liability claims brought by creditors of subsidiary companies against companies that control them relationships relating to subsidiary companies public procurement contracts. According to the new rules, the disputes that fall within their scope shall be decided by fewer courts. This should be an advantage for foreign companies in general, for the following reasons:

The bigger courts (and the law firms based in the relevant areas) should be more familiar with disputes with international aspects; the expectation is that decisions should therefore be reached more quickly. The small number of courts should lead to greater predictability of decisions. Indeed, if there are fewer judges involved in disputes of these kinds, it is more probable that their decisions will be consistent and, therefore, that the outcomes of the disputes may be easier to predict in terms of processing times and/or economic costs. Some issues raised by new rules

The new set of rules does not cover all cases which may occur in...