the takeover bid from sparkasse for civibank and the “deadly embrace” between foundations and banks: Notes on the renewed doubts about the constitutional legitimacy of d.lgs 17 may 1999, n. 153

Abstract

Banking foundations, created in the context of the privatisation process of the public banking system in the early 1990s, play today a key role in the national economy. The total disbursements per year are around one billion euros, and most of the resources are channelled into key areas of the social and cultural life of the State, in a historical phase characterized, even with the recent exception represented by the NRRP, by compressions of expenditure and stability pacts. However, at the same time as this institutional activity, they continue to exert a decisive influence in defining the governance and strategies in some of the major Italian banks, in contrast with the aspirations and purposes crystallized in the l. 23 December 1998, n. 461 (so-called legge Ciampi) and in the following D.lgs. 17 May 1999, n. 153 including, in particular, the separation between foundations and banks and, consequently, the limitation of the influence of politics on the latter. A recent affair, only apparently marginal, highlights the critical issues of a regulatory system characterized by deep and manifest contradictions between the plan of principles and that of detailed rules.