Former Ilva, Court declares state of insolvency

As inadmissible, a similar request was rejected for the companies AdI Energia (which manages the power plants of the Taranto plant), AdI Servizi Marittimi (which manages the ships for the transport of raw materials and finished products) and AdI Tubiforma (the Racconigi plant) as they are closely interconnected in terms of operations with Acciaierie di Italia.

In addition, the 19 June was set as the date for the creditors' meeting at which the state of affairs will be examined before the judge.

With the declaration of a state of insolvency, state funding can now be released under Decree Law 4/2024 (currently in the Senate) with a maximum duration of five years and a maximum limit of EUR 320 million for the year 2024. Resources that will come in the form of a bridging loan to the commissioner management.

The state of insolvency, however, opens a second chapter for Acciaierie. And it is a criminal one with the investigation into the alleged crime of bankruptcy by the Milan Public Prosecutor's Office.

The latter, for the time being, has only opened a file without specific indications or suspects, but it is presumable that the public prosecutor's office will now start investigations to check whether there were, and what, irregularities in the management of Acciaierie.

The opening of the file had already been announced by the public prosecutor's office on 27 February. President De Simone wrote in the order of 29 February: 'As for the state of insolvency, the irreversible impossibility of regularly meeting its obligations and the absolute absence of cash liquidity for the survival of the direct business continuity, the same is in no way contested by the company and in any case was ascertained by the expert during the negotiated settlement and examined by the Court in the reasoned measures adopted by the designated judge for the confirmation of the protective measures requested in the context of the settlement. At that time it emerged Acciaierie's debts of 3.1 billion as at the end of November 2023.

It should be recalled that with the negotiated crisis settlement, the rejection of the precautionary and protective measures requested by Acciaierie took place on 16 February by order of Judge Francesco Pipicelli. With these measures, Acciaierie would have wanted to block creditors (from Ilva in extraordinary administration to credit institutions) in the "right to report to the Centrale Rischi and to the Crif the suspension of payments during the negotiations, as well as to revoke credit lines already existing and used".

This was the third 'no' arrived at AdI by the same magistrate, who had previously rejected the company's request to prevent Invitalia from asking Mimit for special administration and had also declared that the January 2023 decree-law (the one that laid the first stone of extraordinary administration) was not unconstitutional.

In rejecting the precautionary and protective measures, the judge wrote that 'for the confirmation of the protective measures, a necessary condition is the existence of a concrete, reliable and realistic prospect of reorganisation of the company'.