Defuse the danger of accepting invalid financial guarantees. This is the purpose of a vademecum drawn up by a patrol of institutions – Bank of Italy, Ivass, Anac and Antitrust – and addressed to all public administrations (but not only).
The initiative stems from the observation that "in the Italian market of these guarantees - reads the press release from the authorities - various critical issues have been found: in some cases, guarantees and surety insurance policies have been issued by subjects who are not entitled to do so or you are later proved false; in others, they were issued by formally legitimated subjects but who, at the time of the enforcement, proved to be insolvent; in still others, it has been difficult or impossible to enforce the guarantees because the guarantor has enforced ambiguous contract terms".
The guide therefore contains a series of advice on several fronts:
- how to ascertain whether the guarantee is issued by an authorized person;
- how to understand if the guarantee is false;
- what checks to carry out on financial soundness of the guarantor;
- how to check if the contract complies with the provisions of the law or the call for tenders.
For example, in the 6-page handbook it is specified that "the minor trusts, while carrying out activities of a financial nature, they are not, nor have they ever been, authorized to issue guarantees for the benefit of the public administrations. or private individuals, as they can only issue collective credit guarantees".
As for the cases of forgery, the handbook underlines that "consulting the registers or lists held by the Bank of Italy and IVASS may be sufficient", because in some cases the deceptions are really subtle. In some policies, for example, appear "company names that reproduce, perhaps with slight modifications, those of well-known Italian or foreign insurance companies”. It is always good to check, therefore, that "the identification details of the company or intermediary shown on the contract" coincide perfectly with "those shown in the registers and registration lists kept by the Bank of Italy and IVASS".
All the suggestions, the authorities still underline, are useful also for individuals, including those "which require the issuance of guarantees for the benefit of the public administration".
Read the document written by the Bank of Italy, Ivass, Anac, Agcm.
