The Legal Order

Abstract

Since 1980, provisions of Italian law in the financial field that prohibited or imposed have been attenuated or removed, provisions that permit and give guidance introduced, ambiguous rules clarified and completed, valid principles reiterated and new ones established. This overview of the legislative interventions seeks to bring out the underlying economic rationale of each measure. They are also grouped under seven headings with a linearity and symmetries that only the hindsight afforded by completion of the process permits. The outcome was the passage first of the Consolidated Law on Banking in 1993 and then of the Consolidated Law on Finance in 1998. These two laws gave the Italian banking and financial system a legal framework commensurate with its potential development.