About

An in-house lawyer with an abundance of regulatory and technology expertise accrued over the years, Matteo Frigerio has a true passion for new technologies regulation, combined with an impressive track record in the corporate legal world. Frigerio joined the popular accommodation booking platform Airbnb in 2016 as a senior legal counsel, and in February 2018 was appointed as country manager and senior legal counsel for Italy, a role he takes on with relish. He says ‘my practical advising and truly genuine business interest was recognised by the company that gave me the opportunity to start acting [as] country manager for Italy, the third country in the world in terms of the number of [accommodation] listings as of March 2018’. In his current role, where he describes his work as ‘fascinating’ he has had the chance to work hand-in-hand with policy makers and government relations experts to propose new legislative initiatives, participate in public debates as well as contribute to direct democracy opportunities to amend existing laws. ‘I feel that Airbnb is really helping Italy to become a player in modern travel world, thanks to innovation’ says Frigerio. He is also responsible for building the legal operations from scratch, investing a lot in ‘proactive down-to-earth legal advice’ while focusing on priorities and detailed risk assessment. Frigerio is currently working on an ongoing litigation against the Italian revenue agency on the Airbnb tax, leading this legal case against a law that requires platforms to automatically collect and remit users’ income tax and tourist tax in ‘more than 800 Italian cities – each with a different and unique tax scheme’. Surrounding this, Frigerio says: ‘I am leading the case with the goal in mind to defend Airbnb’s unique business model and competitive position in the market, but equally important, to defend an entire community of consumers who, as underlined by the Italian Competition Authority in November 2017, would be significantly and negatively impacted by the indirect effects of such law’. Prior to taking up his current role he spent time between Switzerland and Ireland in various regulatory roles at Yahoo! and Ralph Lauren. During his time at Yahoo!, Frigerio served as the head of regulatory compliance and law enforcement, substantially contributing to building a new legal department when Yahoo! moved its headquarters from Geneva to Dublin and creating a law enforcement liaison team in the new headquarters from scratch.