Capital partner in the firm in companies between lawyers: the Cnf refers to the Consulta
Doubts about compatibility with the independence of the legal profession
Key points
Finisce davanti alla Corte costituzionale la presenza nelle società tra avvocati di soci di capitali, sia pure non con quota di maggioranza. A sollevare la questione è stato il Consiglio nazionale forense davanti a un ricorso presentato dall’Unione camere civili. Quest’ultima aveva chiesto la cancellazione dall’Albo di due società tra legali, la prima partecipata a sua volta da due società di capitali, la seconda con oggetto sociale esteso a corsi di formazione di natura commerciale; in entrambe, a dire delle Camere civili, si era creata una commistione tra attività forense e altre attività di diversa natura. A corroborare ulteriormente la tesi della cancellazione, il fatto che l’amministratore e rappresentante legale di una delle due società fosse imprenditore nel ramo assicurativo, noleggio di veicoli e luxury yacht charter, oltre
L’ordinanza
The Cnf, in Order 87/2025, shared its doubts on the respect of the protection of independence and of the autonomy of the lawyer and the possible friction with Articles 3, 24, 41 and 111 of the Constitution: in the crosshairs was Article 4 bis of the legal professional order as amended in 2017 by Law No. 124.
The ordinance, after reaffirming the competence of the Cnf on the entire matter relating to the Bars and Law Societies, valorises the European Court of Justice's judgment of 19 December 2024 in which it held that a member state may prohibit the participation of purely financial investors in the capital of a company of lawyers and that a restriction on the freedom of establishment and the free movement of capital is justified by the objective of ensuring that lawyers can exercise their profession independently and in compliance with their professional and ethical obligations.
At the origins of the issue
The Cnf then recalls the genesis of the disputed provision, observing that with Article 5 of Law 247/2012 the Government had been delegated to regulate the matter of companies between lawyers, providing that "the exercise of the legal profession in corporate form is (was) permitted exclusively to companies ... whose members are (were) lawyers registered". Despite this position, Law 124/2017 allowed the participation in companies exercising the legal profession also to non-lawyers, providing only limits on participation (no more than one third of the share capital and reservation of the majority of the members of the management body to lawyers), limits that, moreover, the recent enabling act approved by the Council of Ministers and now being discussed in Parliament also confirms.
Moreover, warns the Cnf, it is the European judges themselves who highlight "an ontological difference between the legal activity, which must be totally independent to meet general needs, and that of the purely capital investor oriented exclusively to profit: this difference and incompatibility, continues the European Court, is of an absolute order, that is, it is independent of the presence, by law or statute or by agreement, of limits on the participation of the purely capital partner".
