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January 28, 2020 "Italy should have ensured compliance by public administrations, in commercial transactions with private companies, with terms of payment not exceeding 30 or 60 days": the EU Court of Justice established it in the ruling that sees the EU Commission against Italy for late payments in the PA The Commission had opened an infringement procedure against Rome, referring it to the Court which today "found a violation of the directive" on the fight against late payment ".

According to the Court, Italy "has not ensured that its public administrations, when they are debtors in the context of commercial transactions, actually respect payment terms not exceeding 30 or 60 calendar days" established in article 4, paragraphs 3 and 4 of the Late Payments Directive. The Commission, to which Italian economic operators and associations of economic operators had made various complaints for the excessively long times in which the Italian public administrations systematically settle their invoices, brought an appeal against Italy for failure to fulfill obligations before the Court.

Italy argued, in its defense, that Directive 2011/7 requires only Member States to guarantee "compliant" maximum payment terms and to "provide for the right of creditors, in the event of non-compliance with these terms, with interest of default and compensation for recovery costs ". According to Italy, the provisions of the directive "do not, however, require Member States to guarantee the effective observance, under any circumstances, of the aforementioned terms by their public administrations".

But the Court rejected this argument, the sentence reads. Furthermore, according to the Court, even if the situation of late payments by public administrations "has been improving in recent years", it does not prevent judges from declaring that "the Italian Republic has failed to fulfill its obligations under of Union law. " Because "the existence of an infringement must be assessed in relation to the situation of the Member State upon expiry of the deadline set in the reasoned opinion", ie the second step of the infringement procedure. In this case, the situation was assessed on April 16, 2017.