EU Non-financial Directive: What is it going to be like in Italy?

Time flies when it comes to upcoming regulation. The 15th of April 2014 appears so distant in the past. On that Tuesday, The European Parliament adopted the now famous Directive on the disclosure of non-financial information by large companies in the EU.  

Now, we are less than a month away from the hard deadline for the transposition of the Directive in national laws (6th December 2016). As other EU member countries, Italy is in the final stages of drafting the transposition law for the Directive. 

While waiting for the final official text, a look at the outcome of the latest public consultation carried out by the Italian Ministry of Finance (MEF) can already give a general idea of how the reporting requirements will change for ‘large public-interest’ entities (listed companies, banks, insurance undertakings and other companies that are so designated by Member States). 

The consultation document is available here. Professionals, institutions, NGOs corporate associations, and companies participated to the consultation, contributing to shape the final provisions. Participants included the Italian banking association ABI, labour unions as CGIL and CISL, Confindustria, Amnesty Italia, ERG and Unicredit.  

Reviewing the MEF final document on the public consultation a number of interesting points emerged, as for example: limited assurance will probably be compulsory, there will be provisions on the "gold plating", companies will have to reference an international standard of non-financial reporting. 

The overall key takeaway is clear: a new stage of the institutionalization process of non-financial accounting is about to start. Analysis and regulation are getting more specific and detailed – companies and professionals will need to be ready to take up this new challenge. 

Author: Donato Calace (LUM University, eRevalue)