1. What is the current legal landscape for White Collar Crime in your jurisdiction?

In Italy the legal landscape for White-Collar Crime has evolved into a markedly more complex system than in the past. While the corporate criminal liability framework pursuant to Legislative Decree 231/2001 remains a central feature, companies are now increasingly exposed to preventive measures originally designed for organised crime pursuant to Legislative Decree 159/2011. These measures are progressively being applied to white-collar scenarios as well, often relying on principles of negligent oversight rather than intentional misconduct.

This overlap between corporate liability and preventive tools has created a multi-layered enforcement environment. Controls are no longer limited to internal governance structures but extend across supply chains, service providers and operational contractors, reshaping how businesses manage risk on a day-to-day basis.

Against this backdrop, three developments are becoming particularly relevant.

(i) Extending compliance principles beyond the corporate perimeter

A key evolution is the expectation that companies safeguard integrity not only within their own organisation, but also across the wider ecosystem of suppliers and contractors. This requires embedding clear compliance requirements into contractual arrangements — covering integrity, anti-corruption, labour protections, health and safety and transparency — together with the right to verify their implementation. The ability to translate compliance policies into enforceable obligations for third parties is now a central component of organisational governance.

(ii) Operational obligations during contract execution

Once activities are outsourced, the focus shifts from contractual design to operational supervision. Companies are increasingly required to demonstrate that they can oversee the performance of outsourced activities, , ensuring that conduct on the ground aligns with integrity frameworks and protects workers. Health & Safety obligations under Legislative Decree 81/2008 play a central role in this transition: organisations must implement effective safety systems — including risk assessment, training, personal protective equipment and emergency planning — with criminal and civil liabilities attaching to failures in practice, not merely on paper.

Operational gaps have become a key source of exposure: failures in reporting, supervision or procedural discipline are often being viewed as evidence of organisational weakness. The rise of ESG has intensified this scrutiny, with regulators and clients focusing on labour conditions, environmental practices and the robustness of sustainability reporting. What used to fall outside the core of compliance is now firmly within the scope of organisational assessment.

(iii) Tax and labour-related risks in service contracts and outsourcing practices

A further area of risk concerns the distinction between legitimate service contracts and the unlawful supply of labour in sectors such as logistics, cleaning, facility management and manufacturing. Contractors may engage in tax evasion, underpayment of social contributions or false invoicing. When these practices benefit the client — or when adequate diligence is not exercised — exposure under Decree 231 for tax offences may arise. Authorities now scrutinise not only contractual drafting, but also the actual organisation of work, making labour-intensive outsourcing one of the most sensitive areas of corporate liability.

2. What three essential pieces of advice would you give to clients involved in White Collar Crime matters?

(i) Assess where compliance controls must extend beyond the corporate perimeter

White-collar crime exposure increasingly originates from third-party conduct, making the ability to differentiate between low- and high-risk outsourcing arrangements a decisive organisational skill. Rather than applying uniform controls to all suppliers, companies are now expected to demonstrate that their compliance architecture reflects a reasoned allocation of oversight — concentrating enhanced obligations, reporting duties and verification rights where the underlying operational and labour structure objectively warrants them.

(ii) Ensure that frontline controls generate clear, actionable escalation paths

Escalation works only if day-to-day operations are structured to detect anomalies in the first place. Clients should strengthen frontline controls — in areas such as procurement, H&S, finance, operations and field supervision — so that integrity red flags, irregular payments, safety deviations or data inconsistencies are identified early and reliably. These operational controls must feed into simple, well-defined escalation channels and confidential whistleblowing tools, enabling the prompt activation of a dedicated response team. A disciplined chain from detection to escalation is now a key indicator of organisational adequacy: regulators expect companies not only to react quickly, but also to demonstrate that the organisation is structurally capable of spotting misconduct before it escalates.

(iii) Be ready to activate a credible internal investigation at short notice

When concerns emerge, companies must be able to launch an internal investigation immediately. This requires preparation in advance: clear investigative protocols, predefined roles, accessible evidence-preservation procedures and external counsel already identified to ensure independence, privilege and prosecutorial credibility. Being “investigation-ready” often makes the difference between demonstrating organisational adequacy and being perceived as reactive or unprepared.

3. What are the greatest threats and opportunities in White Collar Crime law in the next 12 months?

Threats

Over the next 12 months, companies will face a rapidly evolving white-collar crime landscape shaped by the escalation of cyber-enabled and AI-driven misconduct. Cyber fraud, deepfake impersonation, data manipulation and hybrid attacks combining IT breaches with financial irregularities are becoming more sophisticated, increasing exposure wherever escalation channels or internal controls fail to respond promptly. At the same time, companies are increasingly exposed to international fraud schemes involving cryptocurrency payments, cross-border layering and complex fund-movement patterns. Criminal groups are exploiting gaps in AML controls, weak KYC procedures and trade-based money-laundering (TBML) structures to divert funds through digital assets and opaque intermediary chains. Organisations with fragmented governance or decentralised reporting flows are particularly vulnerable, especially where procurement, treasury or commercial functions are not integrated with robust financial crime safeguards.

Opportunities

Despite these challenges, the coming year offers meaningful opportunities for companies to strengthen resilience and reduce liability. Organisations can enhance their governance and control frameworks by adopting genuinely risk-focused policies and procedures, supported by a data-driven approach leveraging digital tools, dashboards and analytics to detect red flags earlier and support sharper decision-making.

Targeted training for high-risk roles raise awareness and reduces behavioural vulnerabilities, while structured, sampling-based audits allow companies to monitor critical processes efficiently and direct oversight resources where they have the greatest impact.

Finally, timely internal investigations and prompt remediation remain essential to limiting exposure and preserving the company’s defensive posture from the outset.

4. How do you ensure high client satisfaction levels are maintained by your practice?

We ensure high client satisfaction on the basis of a foundational premise: strong technical expertise. Our experience is grounded in academic appointments, years in specialised boutique firms and the distinction of being among the first to build a dedicated white-collar crime practice within a multipractice law firm in Italy. This background allows us to combine deep knowledge of the enforcement and market environment with an international perspective shaped by regular involvement in cross-border matters.

Our approach prioritises rapid response and senior involvement at every stage. Matters are handled directly by the practice partner or by professionals with the appropriate expertise, ensuring continuity, strategic consistency and immediate decision-making capability. Where needed, we adopt a multidisciplinary, top-tier approach, drawing on our best-friend relationships with leading international firms to integrate corporate, regulatory, tax, forensic or technology specialists seamlessly into the team.

We also rely on a consolidated network of highly reputable court-appointed experts throughout the country and maintain strong relationships with tier-one law firms in all major jurisdictions, enabling us to manage complex multijurisdictional matters with efficiency, precision and seamless coordination.

5. What technological advancements are reshaping White Collar Crime Law and how can clients benefit from them?

Technological innovation is transforming white-collar investigations by generating new tools and, consequently, new forms of evidence. AI-powered forensic analytics, blockchain-based transaction tracing, and advanced e-discovery platforms now allow investigators to reconstruct financial flows, detect anomalies, and review large datasets with unprecedented accuracy. These developments produce new evidentiary materials—from metadata chains to algorithmic audit trails—which, in turn, raise sophisticated questions on the validity, reliability and admissibility of digital evidence before criminal courts. Issues such as the explainability of AI outputs, the integrity of seized data, the proportionality of automated searches, and the chain of custody of cloud-based information are rapidly becoming central in litigation.

For clients, the shift is twofold. On the preventive side, technology enables more precise monitoring of business processes, real-time anomaly detection, and stronger internal documentation—elements that significantly reduce exposure to corporate criminal liability. On the defensive side, the growing technicality of digital evidence opens new lines of argument: challenges to acquisition protocols, replicability of forensic results, transparency of automated decision-making, and compliance with proportionality standards. These profiles are becoming decisive in white-collar litigation, allowing clients not only to contest investigative flaws but also to frame more robust, technically grounded defence strategies.