With Judgment No. 25167 of July 9, 2025, the Italian Supreme Court – Third Criminal Division – reiterated that, in order to establish the criminal offense of fraudulent tax return through the use of invoices for non-existent transactions (Article 2, Legislative Decree No. 74/2000), it is necessary to verify not only the awareness of the falsity of the transaction (i.e. general intent), but also the specific purpose of evading taxes.
In the case at hand, the director of a company had been convicted for having included in the tax return invoices related to a service contract deemed only formally such but actually used to conceal an illicit labor supply (i.e. “somministrazione illecita di manodopera”).
However, the Supreme Court found that the challenged ruling lacked any reasoning regarding the mental element of the offense, merely asserting the circumvention of contribution and contractual obligations, without any investigation into the taxpayer’s evasive intent.
Recalling a well-established legal principle (see Supreme Court Judgment No. 37131/2024), the Court emphasized that verifying the specific intent is essential, as it constitutes the qualifying subjective element of the offense. The mere use of invoices related to a fictitious contract – which masks a different economic operation – is not sufficient, in the absence of proof that the taxpayer knowingly pursued an undue tax saving.
In conclusion, the annulment with referral to the Court of Appeal of Perugia confirms the need, in tax criminal matters, for a rigorous assessment of fraudulent intent, which cannot be automatically inferred from the civil reclassification of the contractual relationship.
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With Ordinance No. 15987 of 2025, the Italian Court of Cassation established that a dismissal notice is presumed to be known by the recipient at the moment it is delivered to their residential address, even if the employee is not actually informed.
The case at hand concerns a dismissal imposed due to absolute and permanent unfitness for work, communicated to the employee by registered letter sent to their residential address. Specifically, the dismissal letter, properly delivered, was collected by the employee’s mother, who lived with him, and who decided not to hand it over to her son in order to protect him from potential psychological repercussions that the news of the dismissal might cause. Consequently, the employee challenged the dismissal after the statutory deadline of 60 days from receipt of the communication, invoking as justification for the late challenge the lack of knowledge of the dismissal.
However, both the Court of First Instance and the Court of Appeal of Bologna (second-instance judgment) declared the appeal inadmissible, due to the expiration of the challenge period, considering the communication received at the employee’s address to be fully valid. They relied on a legal presumption of knowledge, based on the substantial legal equivalence between “knowledge” and “knowability” in relation to the delivery of an act to the recipient’s domicile.
The Court of Cassation subsequently confirmed this interpretation, reaffirming that, under Italian law, there is a legal presumption of knowledge of acts: an act is deemed to be known when it reaches the recipient’s address. This presumption can only be rebutted in the presence of objective obstacles beyond the employee’s control, such as natural disasters, serious postal disruptions, or prolonged absences due to force majeure, but not by subjective factors attributable to the recipient.
In conclusion, the ruling reiterates that, under Italian law, the deadlines to contest a dismissal are strict and start from the moment the communication reaches the employee’s address, even in cases where subjective factors prevent the employee from becoming aware of the disciplinary measure imposed on them.
In its judgment No. 19985 of 7 May 2025, the Italian Supreme Court (i.e. “Corte di Cassazione”) upheld the legitimacy of a dismissal for just cause issued to an employee who, in performing his duties as a cashier, had committed repeated accounting irregularities. These mainly involved the failure to register sales transactions and the omission of issuing fiscal receipts.
According to the Court, such conduct – although involving relatively small amounts and in the absence of clear evidence of misappropriation – was nonetheless sufficient to irreparably undermine the relationship of trust between the employer and the employee.
The case originated from an internal investigation initiated by the company through a private investigation firm, which uncovered repeated anomalies in the employee’s handling of cash transactions. These findings led to the initiation of disciplinary proceedings and the subsequent dismissal for just cause.
The dismissal was challenged in court by the employee.
The Court of first istance, by way of an interim order issued at the end of the summary phase under Article 1, paragraphs 51 et seq. of Law No. 92/2012, and a subsequent confirmatory judgment issued at the opposition stage, upheld the employee’s claim. It annulled the employer’s dismissal and ordered the payment of compensation.
According to the first-instance judge, the employer had failed to provide sufficient evidence to support the allegations made against the employee. In particular, the accounting records submitted by the company were deemed unreliable; the identified cash discrepancies were considered to be within normal operational margins and not disciplinarily relevant. Furthermore, the absence of a precise correlation between unrecorded transactions and cash surpluses did not, in the court’s view, support an inference of misappropriation. The Court also noted that the shared use of the same cash register by multiple employees, all operating under a single identification code, made it impossible to conclusively attribute the irregularities to the dismissed worker.
The Court of Appeal overturned the lower court’s decision, upheld the employer’s appeal, and fully rejected the employee’s challenge.
In contrast with the first-instance rulings, the Court of Appeal found that the allegations had been sufficiently substantiated through a set of consistent circumstantial elements, including statements from the investigative personnel, evidence of cash shortages, and a thorough evaluation of witness and documentary evidence.
As a result, the appellate judges deemed the dismissal lawful, holding that the employee’s conduct – given the nature of his role and despite the relatively small sums involved – constituted a serious and repeated breach of the duties of honesty and loyalty, thus justifying the immediate termination of the employment relationship.
The employee filed an appeal before the Italian Supreme Court, raising five grounds of challenge, including the alleged failure by the Court of Appeal to examine key facts of the case – specifically, the claim that the employee had appropriated the proceeds from sales.
The Supreme Court dismissed the appeal in its entirety, fully upholding the lower Court’s decision. According to the Court, dismissal for just cause can be justified without proving misappropriation in the strict legal sense. It is sufficient that the employee’s conduct – by its objective and subjective seriousness – is capable of irreparably damaging the bond of trust with the employer.
In the case at hand, the repeated failure to record sales and to issue receipts, without any plausible justification, amounted to willful misconduct. Even in the absence of a significant financial loss, such behavior undermines the employee’s future reliability in the performance of his duties.
The Court further reiterated that the principle of proportionality must be assessed not only in relation to the actual economic damage, but also with regard to the nature and frequency of the violations, as well as the employee’s role within the company. The modest amount of money involved is therefore irrelevant; what prevails is the need to safeguard the integrity of the fiduciary relationship – particularly where the conduct is repeated over time and clearly attributable to the employee.
In conclusion, the Supreme Court held that the failure to record cash transactions and issue fiscal receipts – even for small amounts – may constitute just cause for dismissal when such conduct reflects a willful, repeated, and disloyal attitude that irreparably undermines the employer’s trust. Specific proof of misappropriation is not required; it is sufficient that the behavior gives rise to serious doubts about the employee’s future trustworthiness.
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With the recent ruling no. 11344 dated April 30, 2025, the Italian Supreme Court clarified that judicial proceedings initiated under the so-called “Fornero” procedure prior to February 28, 2023, continue to be governed—even in the appeal stages—by the provisions established by that procedure, notwithstanding its repeal under the so-called “Cartabia” reform.
The dispute originated from the challenge to a dismissal brought by a worker employed before March 2015 and thus covered by the protections of Article 18 of the Workers’ Statute (i.e. “Statuto dei Lavoratori”).
To fully understand the matter and the reasoning set forth by the Supreme Court in the ruling under review, it is necessary to reconstruct the procedural phases, including their chronological sequence.
The dismissal was challenged in October 2021 by filing a claim pursuant to Article 1, paragraphs 47 et seq., of Law no. 92/2012 (the so-called Fornero law). By order dated November 9, 2022, the Court of First Instance dismissed the claim, thus concluding the preliminary phase. The employee then filed an opposition against this order, which the Court of first istance rejected by judgment dated June 6, 2023.
About six months later, on December 1, 2023, the claimant lodged an appeal with the Court of Appeal, submitting an appeal (rather than the prescribed complaint) against the Court of first istance judgment following the opposition phase.
The Court of Appeal declared the appeal late and thus inadmissible, as it was filed within six months instead of within the thirty-day term required for the complaint.
The Court of first istance interpreted Articles 35 and 37 of Legislative Decree no. 149 of 2022—which regulate, respectively, the transitional discipline and the repeal of the Fornero procedure—holding that the repeal applies only to proceedings initiated after February 28, 2023, and that the case at hand, having been initiated prior to that date, remained governed by the previous procedural provisions, namely Article 1, paragraphs 47 et seq., of Law no. 92/2012.
Against this ruling, the employee appealed to the Supreme Court, advancing a single ground of appeal.
The claimant argued that, once the repeal of the Fornero procedure was enacted by the Cartabia reform, the complaint procedure could no longer survive.
This argument was based on the combined reading of the first and fourth paragraphs of Article 35, paragraph 1, of the Cartabia reform, which—as noted—govern the transitional phase between the old and the new procedural rules.
Specifically, the first paragraph provides that, “unless otherwise provided,” the new provisions apply to proceedings initiated after February 28, 2023; the claimant interpreted an exception to this rule in the subsequent fourth paragraph of the same Article 35, which states that the new provisions “apply to appeals filed after February 28, 2023.”
The Italian Supreme Court, rejecting the employee’s appeal, confirmed the correctness of the lower courts’ interpretation.
Starting from a literal analysis of the legislative amendment, the Supreme Court ruled that the application of the new provisions to appeals filed after February 28, 2023, is limited to those governed by the ordinary civil procedure (namely, Chapters I and II of Title III, Book II of the Italian Code of Civil procedure) and to those relating to the generality of labor disputes subject to the ordinary labor procedure (Articles 434, 436-bis, 437, and 438 of the Code of Civil procedure).
Article 35, paragraph 4, does not extend its scope to the complaint, which is a specific form of appeal within the so-called Fornero procedure, a procedure to which Article 35 makes no reference.
The Supreme Court further emphasized that this interpretation is consistent with the general principle of perpetuatio iurisdictionis, according to which civil proceedings are governed in their entirety by the procedure in force at the time the claim is filed. The principle of “tempus regit actum”, which means that supervening laws apply immediately to procedural acts considered individually, does not apply to the entire set of systematically organized procedural rules guiding the judicial decision, as this would violate the principle of non-retroactivity of the law set forth in Article 11 of the preliminary provisions to the Civil Code, of which Article 5 of the Code of Civil Procedure is an expression.
It follows that proceedings pending under the Fornero Procedure as of February 28, 2023, remain governed—even during the appeal phase—by the provisions laid down in Article 1, paragraphs 47 et seq., of Law no. 92 of 2012, whose repeal (Article 37, Legislative Decree no. 149 of 2022) applies only to proceedings initiated after February 28, 2023.
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On 8 and 9 June, citizens will be called upon to cast their votes on the five abrogative referendums on labour and citizenship promoted by the CGIL in July 2024.
After passing the Court of Cassation’s scrutiny in December 2024, in February of this year the referendum requests were also given the green light by the Constitutional Court, which deemed them in conformity with the law and declared them admissible.
Of the five referendum questions, the four on labour issues concern, in particular
the regulation of the ‘Contract of employment with increasing protections
the maximum measure of compensation for unlawful dismissal in “small enterprises”;
the a-causality regime for fixed-term contracts;
the joint and several liability of the principal for compensation for damages in the event of accidents at work related to the specific activity of the contractor.
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