Pepe (Covip): 'The Arbitrator will serve to resolve conflicts especially in the funds'

There is no authority without an arbitrator. Only the social security one was missing. It will come. So even Covip will have an extrajudicial body to which one can turn to avoid the biblical timescales and costs of ordinary justice.

Was a new out-of-court structure so essential, however? The question is legitimate because if we line up the data of the last five years, complaints (to funds) and complaints (to Covip) are stable.

Complaints, since 2020, have always been below the 4,000 threshold. Five years ago they were at 3,967 compared to 3,764 in 2024. So there has been a slight decrease. The same applies to complaints, which are around 500 a year. Finally, it should be noted that for both complaints and exposures, the product most in dispute is the Individual Pension Plan (IPP).

In light of the five-year trend of complaints and complaints, is there then a need for an arbitration body for supplementary pensions as well? We put the question directly to Covip's newly appointed president, Mario Pepe: 'It is true that complaints and complaints are stable in the area of pension funds. In fact, the Arbitrator is mainly used to settle disputes on the pension fund side. There, there are more complaints from members'. It will therefore be the professionals who will make most use of the Pension Arbitrator when it is established.

The crucial question, however, is: what will the Pension Arbitrator deal with? The key and most discussed issue is that of omitted contributions. As experts point out, there is a regulatory hole to be filled here; in the event of non-payment of contributions to the Treasury fund managed by the Inps, the entrepreneur receives a negative Durc. The Durc is the single document of contributory regularity; in the event of a rejection by the Inps, the entrepreneur who does not pay his employees' contributions cannot work with the Public Administration. On the other hand, there is no administrative penalty in the case of non-payment of contributions to supplementary pension funds. Here the Arbitrator could play a key role. 'Yes,' Pepe confirms, 'the Social Security Arbitrator will also be able to deal with social security contributions not paid to the funds. Not only that. Not only members but also the pension fund itself will be able to apply to the Arbitrator'. Thus, in the event of a company's failure to make contributions, the pension fund will be able to assert the worker's rights before the extrajudicial body.