The political agreement on false accounting it should be around the corner by now. The new government amendment, in the pipeline, it no longer contemplates non-punishment thresholds, but introduces a new criterion on the basis of which more or less serious penalties are imposed: from 2 to 6 years in prison for those responsible for companies with turnover above a certain threshold and 1 to 3 years for companies that remain below the revenue limit. One of the aspects still under discussion is precisely the height at which to set the bar that will mark the border between one sentence and another. It seems that a reference figure is at an altitude of 600 thousand euros.
The goal of double-tracking is protect smaller companies (opening them the way to plea bargaining or other solutions, at least the first time), which are supposed to be more exposed to errors, above all because they do not always have the technical skills internally that are never lacking in larger companies.
The amendment, once finalized, will not be presented in the Senate Justice Committee, where the anti-corruption bill is being examined (which also provides for measures on false accounting), but directly in the Chamber.
The Government's original Bill established thresholds of non-punishment for unlisted companies: the penalty was not triggered for falsehoods or omissions that led to a variation in the economic result of no more than 5%. The new solution, however, provides that the crime is always punished.
