The Reform of the Civil Proceedings, (Italian Legislative Decree No 149 of 10 October 2022) will extend, with effect from 30 June 2023, the ‘assisted negotiation’ procedure to employment disputes.
From that date the employer and employee, if assisted by lawyers or employment consultants, will be able to sign final and non-appealable conciliation minutes (in jargon defined as ‘tombali’ – ‘tombstones’) without therefore having to ratify the agreement reached before the conciliation commissions or the bodies provided for by Articles 410 et seq. of the Italian Code of Civil Procedure.
With regard to the procedural aspects, as is already the case today for civil disputes falling within the scope of assisted negotiation, the procedure can be activated with the signing, between the parties involved in a dispute, of an agreement with which they undertake to cooperate to seek an amicable resolution of the dispute with the assistance of qualified professionals.
The agreement must provide, in addition to the subject of the dispute, a deadline for the completion of the procedure (not less than one month and not more than three months), extendable for a further 30 days by agreement between the parties to that effect.
In common with the ordinary civil procedure, the procedure may also be initiated at the request of only one of the parties, by written invitation addressed to the other party to sign the aforementioned agreement, with an indication of the subject of the dispute and the warning that failure to respond to the invitation within 30 days or the refusal to sign it may be considered by the judge for the purposes of the costs of the proceedings.
Any agreement reached as part of the assisted negotiation procedure, signed by the parties and their respective professionals, is definitive and will constitute (in the same way as even non-final judgments, as well as the minutes of conciliation currently signed in the venues envisaged by Articles 410 et seq. of the Italian Code of Civil Procedure and duly filed) an enforceable right including for the registration of judicial mortgage. The agreement must be provided, by one of the two parties, to a certification commission established under Article 76 of Italian Legislative Decree No 276 of 10 September 2003, within the following ten days.
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