OECD Corporate Governance Factbook 2025: Italy
Table of contents
This Country Note consolidates information published in the 2025 edition of the OECD Corporate Governance Factbook. Along with the summary of recent developments, it provides an overview of Italy’s corporate governance framework and related information benchmarked against 51 other jurisdictions covered by the Factbook, including all OECD and G20 members.
The information in this document is as of 31 December 2024 unless otherwise specified.
For further details, please refer to the OECD Corporate Governance Factbook 2025.
In March 2024, the Italian Parliament enacted the Capital Markets Law, a reform designed to boost the competitiveness and development of financial markets in support of economic growth. The initiative builds on the OECD’s 2020 review of Italian capital markets and the subsequent Green Paper published by the Ministry of Economy and Finance in 2022.
Several provisions within the Capital Markets Law are aimed at modernising Italy’s corporate governance framework, with the objective of facilitating market access and encouraging long-term listings by companies and investments. Key measures include enhanced voting rights for founders and long-term shareholders—through instruments such as multiple-voting and loyalty shares—as well as incentives to foster institutional investor participation and active engagement.
The Capital Markets Law also granted the Italian Government the authority to implement a further and comprehensive reform of the Consolidated Law on Finance, as well as the relevant provisions of the Civil Code governing listed companies. The objective is to reduce administrative burdens on companies, streamline supervisory processes, facilitate access to capital markets, and ultimately enhance the attractiveness of the Italian regulatory framework.
In early 2025, additional elements were incorporated into the scope of the reform, which also seeks to simplify the sanctioning regime under CONSOB’s remit and to facilitate the use of alternative or deflating procedures. The overarching goal is to enhance the effectiveness of supervisory activities by accelerating related processes and enabling a more targeted focus on the most significant violations. This, in turn, aims to improve the proportionality of the system.
Consob has worked in recent years to promote regulatory simplification to improve the effectiveness and attractiveness of Italy’s financial market, while maintaining investor protections. Key efforts included streamlining in 2024 prospectus approvals with faster timelines, lower costs, and allowing submissions in English and digital format.
|
No. of listed companies in Dec 2024 |
Change since Dec 2021 |
Market capitalisation in Dec 2024 |
Ratio to GDP |
||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Italy |
381 |
|
73.2% |
USD 843 bn |
35.6% |
|
OECD members |
21 618 |
|
4.3% |
USD 92 518 bn |
136.5% |
|
World |
46 086 |
|
11.3% |
USD 124 536 bn |
112.7% |
Note: “World” covers 98 jurisdictions. “OECD members” covers 38 countries.
Source: OECD Capital Market Series Dataset. IMF.
Note: “World” covers 98 jurisdictions.
Source: OECD Capital Market Series Dataset.
Note: The share of companies in each jurisdiction where the single largest shareholder and the three largest shareholders own more than 50% of the company’s equity capital. “World” covers 98 jurisdictions.
Source: OECD Capital Market Series Dataset.
The categories that the jurisdiction fits into are highlighted in blue.
The bold numbers and words indicate country-specific additional information.
The numbers within parentheses indicate the number of jurisdictions applicable to each category.
For further information on the methodologies used for the categorisations, please see the OECD Corporate Governance Factbook 2025.
* Some jurisdictions belong to multiple categories because of the additional requirements other than a percentage of shareholding.
* Jurisdictions where mandatory takeover bid rules exist are included.
** Some jurisdictions belong to multiple categories.
* Some jurisdictions belong to multiple categories.
* Some jurisdictions belong to multiple categories.
* Some jurisdictions belong to multiple categories.