A Primer on Corporate Governance: Italy

This book will provide a comprehensive insight of the characteristics and development of corporate governance in Italy. Both the external institutional mechanisms, such as the codes of best practices and the mandatory auditor rotation, and the internal corporate governance devices, such as boards' structure and composition and director compensation, will be analyzed. In particular, this book is presented to provide the reader an insight on the ownership structure and the control enhancement mechanisms adopted by the Italian dominant shareholders as well as the typical – and unique – two tier-board structure, with a board of directors and a board of statutory auditors, that is widely adopted among Italian companies. This book reveals that while corporate governance in Italy has – to some extent – converged towards other European and international models, there are certain core features that remain (and are likely to do so in the near future as well) and their knowledge and understanding is relevant to investors and other stakeholders.