1) Bank of Italy: consultation on proposed amendments to Circular No. 285 implementing CRD VI and CRR III

On 4 June 2026, Bank of Italy launched a consultation on the amendments to Circular No. 285 of 17 December 2013 (the “Circular”), introduced by Legislative Decree No. 208/2025. Such decree amended the Consolidated Banking Act (“TUB”) in order to implement the innovations introduced by Directive (EU) 2024/1619 (“CRD VI”) and Regulation (EU) 2024/1623 (“CRR III”).

In particular, the amendments — which affect Part One, Title I, Chapters 2 and 4 and Part Three, Chapter 6 of the Circular — concern:

the implementation of the national transposition provisions of CRD VI relating to financial holding companies and mixed financial holding companies (“(M)FHC”) which: (i) confer on Bank of Italy the power to issue implementing provisions in respect of the authorisation procedure, modalities for the submission of the application, coordination with the authorizations provided for under Articles 14, 19, 57-bis and 60-bis TUB, the concept of holding and the criteria for assessing the conditions of exemption; and (ii) provide for the possibility for (M)FHC exempted from the role of parent company of the group to obtain exclusion from the prudential consolidation perimeter, introducing an authorization procedure, specifying documentation to be attached to the application and identifying specific assessment criteria. It is also permitted to designate an intermediate (M)FHC as the entity responsible for compliance with consolidated prudential requirements;

the alignment with the amendments introduced by CRR III in respect of financial and ancillary undertakings, on the one hand clarifying that ancillary undertakings fall within the definition of financial undertakings and, on the other hand, providing operational guidance consistent with the European regulatory framework in order to ensure a uniform approach among intermediaries.

The consultation will remain open for 30 days from the date of its publication.

2) Bank of Italy: consultation on proposed new implementing provisions for AIFMD2 and UCITSD

On 27 May 2026, the Bank of Italy published a consultation document containing the implementing provisions for Directive (EU) 2024/927 (“AIFMD2”) and Legislative Decree No. 47/2026, implementing the delegation under Law No. 21/2024 (the “Capital Markets Law”), and the provisions transposing the amendments to Directive (EC) 2009/65 introduced by Directive (EU) 2024/2994 (“UCITSD”).

The proposed amendments affect the secondary regulation on the collective asset management, including the Regulation on the collective asset management, Bank of Italy’s Regulation implementing Articles 4-undecies and 6, paragraph 1, letters b) and c-bis), of the Italian Consolidated Financial Act, the Provisions on the transparency of banking and financial transactions and services, and the Provisions on systems for the out-of-court settlement of disputes relating to banking and financial transactions and services.

In particular, the amendments proposed by Bank of Italy derive from the need to:

• implement the provisions transposing the AIFMD2 with regard to delegation arrangements, liquidity risk management, supervisory reporting, the provision of custody and depositary services and the granting of loans by alternative investment funds, as set out in Legislative Decree No. 39/2026;
• implement certain provisions of Legislative Decree No. 47/2026, giving effect to the delegation under the Capital Markets Law;
• align the provisions with Regulation (EU) 2022/2554 on digital operational resilience for the financial sector; and
• transpose the amendments to the UCITSD introduced by Directive (EU) 2024/2994 with regard to the treatment of concentration risk arising from exposures to central counterparties and of counterparty risk for transactions in centrally cleared derivative instruments.

The consultation will remain open for 45 days from the date of its publication.

3) Italian Supreme Court: the partial nullity of the ABI model also applies to specific guarantees

By Order No. 15953/2026, published on 24 May 2026, the Italian Supreme Court reaffirmed the principle of law concerning the partial or total nullity of agreements reproducing the prohibited clauses of the ABI model in bank guarantees, specifying that, for the application of that principle, it is not necessary for the guarantee concerned to be an omnibus guarantee.

According to the Court, what is relevant for the purposes of the application of partial nullity is not the specific or generic nature of the guarantee, but the content of the downstream agreement reproducing the sanctioned clauses, since the violation arises in every case where there is an interdependence between the upstream act and the downstream agreement that is functional to producing the anti-competitive effect.

The Court also recalls that the purpose of the declaration of partial nullity of the agreement is to guarantee the principle of conservation of the agreement; however, nullity affects the entire agreement where a restriction of competition operates, as in the case where a market-sharing agreement is reproduced in its entirety in the downstream agreement.

Finally, it is noted that the appellant must expressly invoke the total nullity of the agreement and prove that, without those null clauses, the agreement would not have been concluded, since the court cannot declare it of its own motion. What may be raised of its own motion is only partial nullity, provided that the claim for such invalidity is formulated with clarity and specificity, a generic invocation of the nullity of the guarantee not being sufficient, on pain of inadmissibility of the appeal.

To access the decision, click here.