A few days after the green light in the Senate of the anti-corruption law decree, Raffaele Cantone president of the ANAC National anti-corruption authority, participated, on the occasion of the ten years of Open Gate Italia activity, a strategic consultancy firm in the field of public and regulatory relations, at the presentation of the study “The lobby is transparency” on the self-regulation of the market of consultancy firms in institutional affairs.
In the presence, among others, of the Chief Executive Officer of Open Gate Italia Laura Rovizzi, of the President Professor Giovanni Guzzetta and of the Head of Institutional Affairs Andrea Morbelli and Partner of Open Gate Italia, Raffaele Cantone commented on the topic under discussion as follows: "Stakeholders pursue a legitimate objective, but precisely to distinguish them from those who do not hesitate to implement corruptive interventions, regulation is needed, to prevent relevant decisions from being taken in an opaque manner, under pressure from certain pressure groups. Disciplining lobbies is essential, especially after the abolition of public funding. Various investigations have in fact demonstrated that the current regulatory vacuum risks favoring those who carry out this activity illegally”.
Laura Rovizzi managing director of Open Gate Italia, regarding the tenth anniversary of the birth of Open Gate Italia, he then declared: “In this sector it is important that competent, technically prepared and structured companies consolidate. The presence today of the president of the anti-corruption authority Raffaele Cantone, as well as being a great honour, bears witness to the validity of this approach”.
The analysis and the international dimension of the market dynamics of lobbying companies were illustrated by representatives of two of the most influential agencies in Europe Wes Himes, Partner of Instinctif Brussels, Ben Petter, Europe director of Grayling and Simone Crolla director of American Chamber of Commerce in Italy.
The results of the study have as main evidence a trend in growth in the business volume of lobbying firms. In fact, the capitalization, at book values, of the companies examined reached 2016 million euros in 2017-24,5, with an increase of 8% compared to the previous year, of which the first 10 represent 96% of the total .
The 6 companies with communication and PR activities that have a division or an office that deals with lobbying develop a turnover of around 35 million euros, equal to 62% of the overall total. The turnover developed in 2016-2017 is equal to approximately 21,6 million euros, up 20% compared to the previous year.
Growth is due to a corporate structure that the market itself requires as multinational clients, in fact, ask lobbying companies for a series of characteristics (corporate bodies, code of ethics) in line with their anti-corruption conduct.
Lobbying companies, today, are internally structured to be a suitable certified entity. In the absence of industry regulations or a national register of lobbyists, the objective, in order to avoid parallels between lobbying and corruption, is to guarantee levels of: transparency, integrity and equal conditions of access.
