Monthly Archives: November 2018

Therapeutic cannabis in Italy: business opportunities

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Italy’s only authorized medical cannabis facility is currently controlled by the military. However, the production site, located in the Florence area, cannot keep up with the increasing demand, creating shortages for patients and barriers to its prescription by physicians (whose patients are unlikely to be able to obtain the quantities needed).

As Colonel Modica of the Italian Military recognized “The health ministry and the defense ministry are trying to fix the shortfall because there’s been a huge increase in cannabis prescriptions and the number of patients who need them”.

Meanwhile, pressed by the patients’ associations, the Italian Health Care Ministry Giulia Grillo announced not only the increase of import of therapeutic cannabis products from the Netherlands (to cover the short-term shortages), but also the start of a longer-term project, eventually leading to the creation of a public-private partnership for the production of cannabis. “An invitation to present expressions of interest will be published in order to increase the production of therapeutic cannabis“, Ministry said. Although underlining that an appropriate time frame will be needed in order to implement the project, the Ministry confirmed that the cannabis production activity is “of great interest for both the Defense and the Public Health Care” and crucial in order to satisfy the increasing needs of both domestic and foreign markets.

The increase in the domestic production of therapeutic cannabis, along with the overall demand for it, appears to be inevitable.

On the other hand, the boom of “light cannabis” products in Italy (i.e., containing THC in a percentage lower than 0.2 and, therefore, expressly declared legal in Italy starting from January 2017) seems to have encountered some obstacles lately.

The Advisory Board of the Italian Health Care Ministry (Consiglio Superiore di Sanità) issued a report last spring, recommending the adoption of measures aimed at prohibiting the sale of light cannabis products.

In addition to that, an internal note of the Ministry of Home Affairs, recently made public, promoted a zero-tolerance approach and a strict application of the relevant laws and regulations. Such steps have caused great uncertainty and concerns amongst those who have invested in what came to the media’s attention in 2017 as a State-backed business.

Hence, the latest developments relating to therapeutic cannabis in Italy indicate that new business opportunities for both exporters and producers of cannabis-based prescriptions are likely to be offered in the Italian market. Conversely, serious questions can be raised in connection to the light-cannabis boom, in view of the inconsistent approach recently taken by Italian authorities.

Tax Crimes Will Trigger Criminal Liability of Corporate Entities

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As a result of the so called “PIF Directive”, starting from July 2019 criminal corporate liability under Italian law 231 may be triggered by tax crimes, too.

(If you are not overly familiar with the principles of Italian 231 legislation on criminal liability of corporate entities, perhaps you may start here.)

Under Italian 231 law, corporations are subject to criminal (rather, quasi-criminal) liability when certain specific crimes are committed in their interest or to their advantage. So far, such crimes have never included tax crimes, although the issue had been widely debated and several court decisions had attempted to combine other types of crimes with tax crimes (the Supreme Court had always disagreed, though).

Now, the PIF Directive, which Member States must implement by July 6, 2019, “establishes minimum rules concerning the definition of criminal offences and sanctions with regard to combatting fraud and other illegal activities affecting the Union’s financial interests, with a view to strengthening protection against criminal offences which affect those financial interests.” Liability of legal entities must be foreseen by national legislation and serious offenses against the common VAT system must be punished.

The Italian legislator will thus need to introduce such serious VAT crimes (i.e., having a value in excess of 10 million euros) in the list of crimes triggering corporate liability. This, in fact, may open the door to other tax crimes as a basis of 231 liability of corporate entities.