Italian Business Register

The Italian Business Register is a public register which, as already provided for within the Civil Code, has been fully implemented since 1996, by the Law in relation to the reorganisation of the Chambers of Commerce and with the subsequent Implementing Regulation. The aforementioned Law established an Italian Business Register Office at each Chamber of Commerce, which has the following features:

• it has provincial jurisdiction;
• it is managed using computerised techniques;
• it is managed by the local Chamber of Commerce, under the supervision of a Judge, appointed by the Presiding Judge of the Court of the provincial capital, who is the Register Judge;
• it is governed by a curator appointed by the board duly represented by the Secretary General or a director of the Chamber of Commerce who will ensure the correct management of the Italian Business Register in accordance with any provisions on the subject and any decisions made by the Register Judge.

The Italian Business Register can be defined as the register of company details: it in fact contains information (incorporation, amendments, cessation of trading) for all companies with any legal status and within any sector of economic activity, with headquarters or local branches within the country, as well as any other subjects as required by law. The Business Register contains all the main information relating to companies (name, statute, management, headquarters, etc.) and all the subsequent events that have occurred to them after registration (for example changes to the statute and to company officers, changes in registered address, liquidation, insolvency proceedings, etc.).
The Italian Business Register provides a complete picture of the legal position of each company and is a key archive for drawing up indicators of economic and business development in each area to which it belongs.

The Italian Business Register is the only one and includes an ordinary section and a special section.

The Ordinary Section includes:

• partnerships and corporations;
• cooperatives;
• consortia with external activities and the consortia companies;
• companies incorporated overseas with administrative headquarters or a branch in Italy or where the main company objective is based within Italy;
• European Economic Interest Groups;
• public bodies with a commercial activity as their exclusive or main business;
• individual companies (non small).

A Special Section includes those qualifying as:

• agricultural companies (persons and legal entities);
• small company and/or farmer;
• general partnerships;
• artisan companies (note).

There are also specific special sections containing businesses that qualify as:

• an innovative start-up;
• a certified incubator;
• an innovative sme;
• a social enterprise;
• entities that manage and co-ordinate other entities, and the entity subject to their control (group connections).