Foreign investments: the reciprocity condition in the practice

The foreign investors (coming from countries not included in the European Union) who want to constitute a company either purchase stakes of an Italian company can do it only if the native country allows italian citizens to be stake’s holders or to create companies of same kind of those that the foreigner investors want to be create in italy or whose stakes they want to purchase.

The Italian Foreign Minister upgrades every year the list of countries which respect the reciprocity conditions (www.esteri.it).

In fact, according to a recently issued statement of the Italian Supreme Court, the reciprocity condition is to be applied to the business investments since this principle must be applied to all the rights which are not considered in the category of the human rights.

In concrete terms, the subsistence of the reciprocity’s condition in the native country of an investor must be proved by the investor himself and in case of nonexistence of the reciprocity condition, the company’s institutive act or the contract which transfers the propriety of the stakes is invalid.