A sea of data relating to all bankruptcies registered in the Italian courts from 2010 to today, obtained through the portals of the Ministry of Justice. Is called "Cherry Sea” and the French startup “Cherry Srl”, a company that provides artificial intelligence services to credit operators, updates it on a quarterly basis. For each bankruptcy, the entire history of the documents filed and information on judges, trustees and creditors is collected.
I data updated to 31 March 2022 speak for themselves: in the first three months of the year 1946 bankruptcy cases were opened in the Italian courts, 22% less than in the same period of 2021. Rome is the most "active" court, with 256 new cases opened, followed by Milan (159) and Florence (77).
The pace of the decrease unfortunately fails to speed up the closure of the proceedings. This is the first evidence that emerges from the full report. Numbers still far from the pre-Covid era, compared to which the volume of cases closed remains stable, which in the first quarter of 2022 were 3566, 232 less than in the same period of 2021 (-6%) and 293 less than in 2019 (-7,5%) . As at 31 March 2022, there were just over 70.000 pending proceedings in Italy, down by 2% compared to the end of 2021, over 40% of which are concentrated in the top twenty courts by volume of activity: Bari, Bologna, Busto Arsizio, Modena , Bergamo, Brescia, Cagliari, Catania, Florence, Genoa, Milan, Monza, Naples, Rome, Turin, Padua, Treviso, Venice, Verona and Vicenza.
Top 20 Italian courts according to the bankruptcy justice observatory
Rome is the most active bankruptcy court, but also between less efficient. Overall, in the first twenty Italian courts by volume of activity in the first three months of the year, 1033 cases were opened and 1612 were closed. The most active court remains that of Rome, with 256 bankruptcies opened in the first quarter, followed by Milan ( 159) and Florence (77). The capitals of Lazio and Tuscany are also among the least efficient sections of Italy, which ended the quarter with fewer cases closed than those opened, respectively 125 and 40. Negative balance also for Verona, with 39 bankruptcies closed against 47 opened, while the most productive courts are Padua (73 cases closed against 19 opened), Naples (96 cases closed against 28 opened) and Treviso (72 cases closed against 23 opened).
Milan is, in absolute terms, the court that has closed the most cases, 375 , and is also among those that, in percentage terms, have reduced the backlog the most, which for the Milanese court amounts to 4112 pending (-5% compared to at the end of 2021). They have had an equally significant impact on their stock Bergamo, which at 31 March 2022 had 1017 pending (-6%) e Treviso with 920 (-5%). Reverse trend for three courts, the only ones among the top twenty to see their backlog grow in the first quarter: Rome, which with 5125 pending proceedings increases its stock (the most voluminous in Italy) by 1% compared to the end of 2021, Florence with 1519 (+2%) and Verona with 1130 (+1%).
The map of the regions: concentration of pending procedures
The map of the regions: in Central Italy 25% of the stock – La Lombardia it is the region with the highest concentration of pending proceedings, 11551, followed by Lazio, 8536 and Campania, 6625. Conversely, the most "unloaded" regions are Trentino-Alto Adige, 612, Basilicata, 734 and Friuli-Venezia Giulia, 770. At area level, most of the pending proceedings are concentrated in Central Italy, where 18175 are registered; in the courts of Southern Italy, on the other hand, there are 16728, a value in line with that of the North West, 16379. There are still 7832 pending cases in the Islands.
