Accounts auditing for certification of financial statements was introduced in Italy on a voluntary basis and mainly addressed branches of Anglo-Saxon multinationals.

The first legislation came about with Law 216 of 1972, which, with the inception of the Italian Companies and Stock Exchange Commission (CONSOB), also introduced the obligation of companies listed on the stock exchange to have their financial statements and, where existing, the group’s consolidated financial statements, certified.

Since then there has been a succession of increasingly frequent legislative operations, extending the obligation of certifying financial statements to an ever-growing number of companies.

Now, the main laws governing accounting audits and certification of financial statements are as follows:

• implementation of delegation as per article 2, letter a), of law n° 216 of 7 June 1974, concerning bookkeeping control and certification of financial statements of “società per azioni” (corporations) listed on the stock exchange (Presidential Decree n.136 of 31/03/1975);
• factoring companies (law n.52 of 21/02/1991);
• implementation of council directive 84/253/EEC on the approval of persons responsible for carrying out the statutory audits of accounting documents (Legislative Decree n° 88 of 27/01/1992);
• motorway companies (law n° 498 of 23/12/1992);
• export consortiums (Ministerial Decree 23/03/1992);
• listing in Italian Register of Building Cooperatives and their Consortiums (Ministerial Decree 12/10/1992);
• implementation of directive 92/49/EEC on direct life insurance (Legislative Decree n° 174 del 17/03/1995);
• implementation of directive 92/49/EEC on direct insurance other than life insurance (Legislative Decree n° 175 del 17/03/1995);
• law of ONLUS (not-for-profit companies), which included the obligation of auditing of the financial statements for ONLUS whose profits are over 2,000,000,000 Italian Lire for two consecutive years (Legislative Decree 460/1997);
• Unified Finance Act (Draghi law) on corporate governance and corporate liability for public funding (Legislative Decree n°58 of 24/02/1998);
• Letta decree and subsequent decisions by the Energy Authority, which introduced the obligation of certification of financial statements, and relative “Accounts broken down into businesses”, for all companies operating in the different compartments of the electricity and gas market (Legislative Decree n°164 of 23/05/2000);
• law n° 366 of 03/10/2001 (delegation of legislative powers to the Government for the reform of corporate law);
• reform of corporate law, which extended the obligation of audits to be performed by an auditor (single professional or auditing firm) or by a board of auditors to società per azioni (corporations) and to some società a responsabilità limitata (limited liability companies) (Legislative Decree n° 5/2003).

The activity of auditing firms is in turn governed by the aforementioned Unified Finance Act and legislative Decree 88/84, as well as by a complex of “Auditing Standards” issued by the Consiglio Nazionale dei Dottori Commercialisti e Ragionieri (Italian Board of Accountants and Auditors) and approved, with its own resolution, by CONSOB.