The Italian Road to Trusts
Authors: Berlinguer Aldo 
Published: April 2022

Abstract: In Italy, there are still today no exhaustive systematic rules on trusts. Aspects of this institute, as developed in common-law jurisdictions, give rise to considerable practical difficulties, since they conflict with some linchpin tenets of the civil law tradition, including the general principle of the liability of the debtor, the conception of property as an absolute right and the limited number of rights in rem, the prohibition of succession agreements. Despite all this, large efforts have been recently made to introduce, in the Italian legal system, institutes that would perform at least some of the peculiar functions of trusts. This is not an isolated phenomenon but a tendency characterizing a growing number of other systems, including Luxembourg, Quebec, Uruguay, China, Republic of San Marino and, lastly, France. Such tendency is fostered by a number of reasons: EU Institutions have recently proved very pro-active towards trusts, inviting member states to introduce equivalent tools in their legislation. The growing competition among regulators for providing hospitable environments to investors has also pushed even the more conservative to innovate. A fit example of this can be found in the recent law on fiducie which has substantially transplanted in the French systema tool that closely resembles the trust. Following the introduction of this new, valuable instrument, large portions of the French system will be dramatically modified, including those areas of the law, as successions, that are not directly touched upon. A shift of perspective has thus occurred: from the idea, shared until today that the fundamental principles of civil law could only be derogated in specific and exceptional circumstances, to the awareness of their actual reduction to the status of ordinary rules. Comparing the new regulation governing the fiducie with the Italian surrogates of the trust, it appears quite obvious that such important modernization process has yet to be conceived in Italy, where a similar shift of perspective is still far to come.

Résumé: Encore aujourd’hui, en Italie, le système juridique ne règlemente pas, de manière systématique, le phénomène du trust. Certains aspects de cet institut, développés dans les pays de common law, contrastent avec les fondations primaires de la tradition civiliste, qui prévoit la responsabilité patrimoniale du débiteur, la conception de la propriété comme droit absolu, le nombre limité des droits réels, l’interdiction des pactes successoraux. Cependant, nombreux atteints ont étés faits pour introduire dans le système de droit Italien, des institutes qui puissent reproduire au moins certains effets du trust. Il ne s’agit pas d’un phénomène isolé mais d’une tendance partagée par d’autres systèmes, comme Luxembourg, Québec, Uruguay, China, République de San Marino, France. Cette tendance s’explique pour différentes raisons: elle à été encouragée par les institutions européennes, qui ont étés très actives en faveur de l’adoption des institutes comme le trust. La compétition croissante parmi les législateurs afin d’attraire des investissements a poussé même les plus conservatifs à innover. Emblématique est la récente introduction de l’in