On 15 May 2023, Law no. 52 of 10 May 2023, converting the Law Decree no. 25/2023 (DFIL) concerning the issuance and transfer of digital financial instruments into law, was published in the Italian Official Gazette and entered into force the day after (the Converting Law).

Deferring to our previous publication on the most significant provisions set out in the DFIL (available here), the Converting Law has inter alia introduced the following changes:

• (i) Definition – Ad hoc definition of companies “situated in Italy”;
• (ii) Perimeter of Application – the regime set out in the DFIL has been extended to (i) also cover debt instruments governed by Italian law where these are issued by non-Italian issuers and (ii)grant specific powers to CONSOB to include certain additional financial;
• (iii) Regime applicable to the [Register]¹ - In addition to the requirements already set forth in the DFIL, the Register is now required to implement arrangements to avoid the un-authorised loss or amendment of data or book-entries relating to tokenized financial instruments for the entire duration of the book-entry;
• (iv) The CONSOB’s legislative powers - CONSOB has been delegated to enact secondary legislation whereby the Italian regulator may decide to extend the regime laid down by the DFIL to securitized derivatives and quotas of limited liability companies.

Footnotes

_{1. Under Article 4(1)(c-bis) of the DFIL, “Register” is defined as “a register within the meaning of Article 2, point 2, of the Regulation 2022/858 which is used to issue tokenized financial instruments in accordance with the provisions laid down by the DFIL”.}