Italia – La factura electrónica

15 enero 2019

  • Italia
  • Derecho Societario

La fracción parlamentaria de Morena (partido con mayoría en el Congreso) presentó recientemente una iniciativa de reforma a la Ley Federal de Trabajo (LFT), que entre otros tiene por objeto incorporar la obligación de los patrones de implementar, un protocolo para prevenir la discriminación por razones de género y atención de casos de violencia y acoso sexual.

Si bien este tipo de conductas ya se encuentran contempladas en la LFT como una causal de rescisión para el patrón y el trabajador, previendo una sanción pecuniaria para el patrón que las realice, tolere o permita que oscila entre $18K pesos (US $1K) a $365K pesos (US $20K) aprox., con la reforma se pretende garantizar la existencia de un mecanismo que proteja de manera efectiva el derecho del trabajador a un trato digno y de igualdad.

La Secretaría de Trabajo y Previsión Social (STPS) actualmente cuenta con un modelo de protocolo de atención frente a casos de violencia laboral con el fin de fomentar en las empresas mexicanas la implementación de políticas y acciones para detectar, prevenir y atender este tipo de situaciones.

La STPS propone la creación de una comisión constituida por representantes de la empresa y los trabajadores, cuyas principales funciones serían:

•       Implementar el protocolo en comento;

•       Recibir, atender y resolver las quejas que presenten los trabajadores sobre violencia laboral; así como

•       Imponer las sanciones que correspondan a los trabajadores en el ámbito laboral, las cuales deberán estar previstas en el Reglamento Interior de Trabajo que rija dentro de la empresa.

En aras de que el protocolo sea un mecanismo efectivo que combata este tipo de conductas dentro de las empresas, se recomienda que el mismo establezca como mínimo:

·       Procesos de diagnóstico que permitan identificar el nivel de riesgo de la empresa para definir las medidas preventivas más adecuadas.

·       Acciones de sensibilización y capacitación que promueva la no violencia laboral, permita a los trabajadores identificar con toda claridad si son víctimas de este tipo de conductas, las instancias a las cuales pueden acudir y los pasos a seguir para la presentación de una queja.

·       Mecanismos para que los trabajadores puedan denunciar este tipo de hechos.

·       Procesos para la investigación de las conductas denuncias.

·       Lineamientos para determinar las sanciones aplicables para los trabajadores que incurran en este tipo de conductas.

Considerando que la aprobación de esta reforma es inminente y a fin de garantizar el cumplimiento de la misma a la fecha de su publicación y entrada en vigor, resulta conveniente que las empresas inicien con la implementación de sus sistemas de compliance, para evitar cualquier sanción que pudiera derivar de alguna visita de inspección por parte de la STPS.

Cabe señalar que estos sistemas no sólo cumplen una función de cumplimiento normativo, sino que también traen consigo múltiples beneficios para las empresas, en materia de prevención de riesgos operativos, laborales y legales.

Es sabido que las prácticas denigratorias en el ambiente laboral son una de las principales causas del ausentismo, de rotación personal y de disminución en el rendimiento. Este tipo de incidencias tienen repercusiones económicas negativas para las empresas, tanto en sus costos como en su productividad.

La implementación de un sistema efectivo de compliance permite asegurar un comportamiento de respeto dentro de la organización, creando un ambiente laboral sano que ayuda a reducir estas incidencias y a potenciar las capacidades del capital humano, para que las empresas puedan cumplir con sus propósitos comerciales y financieros.

Estos sistemas también ayudan a disminuir el riesgo de que las empresas queden expuestas a reclamaciones de esta índole por parte de sus trabajadores, así como a las contingencias y responsabilidades que pudieran derivar de las mismas, tanto en el ámbito laboral, civil y penal. Para descargar la nota completa de clic aquí.

As I have already mentioned in my previous article, the most popular type of company set up in Poland is the Limited Liability Company (LLC). Many foreign investors choose this legal structure for its simplicity and low costs, and often – especially in the smaller ones – investors themselves wish to manage (or co-manage) the company, so they become members of the Management Board.

However, many of them do not pay due attention to legal consequences of such a decision and are not aware of the legal liability connected with this position. I am compelled to underline that many foreign clients invest in Poland in a form of an LLC being groundlessly convinced that the limited liability refers to the whole business in Poland and all the people involved in it. They think that, if something goes wrong and the business of a subsidiary fails, they can just close it, leave the debts behind and start somewhere else.

This is not the case: The members of the Management Board, indeed, could be forced to pay a high price for it. Let’s take a look at this topic.

According to the Polish company law the Management Board Members of an LLC are jointly and severally responsible for the debts of the company in case it does not satisfy its creditors.

Basically, in order to pursue a Member of the Management Board a creditor needs to sue the company first and initiate the enforcement proceedings. In case the enforcement proceedings turn out to be totally or partly ineffective for the lack of the company’s assets – this fact will be confirmed by the bailiff. On this basis the creditor is entitled to sue the member of the Management Board and demand all the amounts that the company didn’t pay to him/her as well as the interest and costs of the court proceedings, including the attorney’s fees. As you may imagine, the amount at stake is high.

How can a Member of the Management Board defend from the liability for the company’s debts? By proving one of the following:

  1. he/she filed for company’s bankruptcy in a due time;
  2. the court declared the restructuring proceedings towards the company in a due time,
  3. it is not his/her fault the non-filing for the bankruptcy or restructuring proceedings in a due time;
  4. the creditor did not incur damage due to the fact that the aforementioned procedures were not initiated in a due time.

The burden of proof shall lie with the Manager. In other words, if he/she needs to prove at least one of those circumstances, while the plaintiff only needs to prove the existence of an unpaid company’s debt.

Establishing the “due time” is a crucial point. It is considered appropriate to file for bankruptcy when:

  • the company for 3 consecutive months has problems with invoices paying; or
  • the company is indebted above the value of its assets for more than 2 years; or

Often an appalling event proving that the company is in serious trouble arises when the bank refused to continue the financing or worse, terminates the loan and no other bank is wishing to provide the company with the financing. .

By contrast, the restructuring may be initiated when the company is still in a relatively good condition: through an agreement with creditors for the deferment or reduction of some payments together with the implementation of certain business improvements, the restructuring agreement may bring the company back into business. Despite the restructuring being relatively expensive, it allows to maintain the company alive, overcome difficulties and get back into the game.

When it is too late or there is no good recovery plan, the only remaining solution is the liquidation of the company within the insolvency proceedings. However, also these proceedings provoke expenses: the insolvent company needs to have resources to finance the judicial fees, the accountants, the receiver’s fees, the attorney’s fees, the employee’s salaries and all other costs during the insolvency process.

If the company does not have enough assets, the court will not even open the insolvency proceedings and if, during the proceedings a shortage of funds arises, the proceedings will be closed.

If the demand for opening of the insolvency or restructuring proceedings is filed too late, the Manager cannot release himself/herself from the liability for the debts of the company and all the damages incurred by the company’s creditors as a result of a belated opening of the insolvency proceedings. As the damage is often equivalent of the unpaid debt, the creditors have two separate legal bases to sue the Management Board Members and get back from them the money they didn’t get from the company.

In extreme cases, when the negligence of the Management Board is truly gross and the damage caused to creditors due to the belated filing for bankruptcy is very high, the court may impose on the Management Board Members a prohibition of running enterprise and holding positions in enterprises.

My advice is to accept the position of Management Board Members with extreme caution and, when the first signs of corporate difficulty arise, to react immediately and contact a lawyer expert in the matter: not only for the company’s sake, but also to protect their own assets and interest.

The majority principle, a pivotal aspect in limited companies, goes into crisis in situations where the share capital is equally divided between two opposing shareholders (50% each). In such hypotheses the approval of decisions is possible only with unanimity and this, obviously, frequently leads to deadlock situations that paralyze the management of the company.

The irreconcilable dissent among the shareholders can lead to the dissolution of the company. To avoid this, several strategies have been found, and one of these is the so-called “Russian Roulette Clause”.

The Shareholders may agree that, in deadlock situations, the Russian Roulette clause comes into play, with the effect of redistributing the shares and, consequently, starting again the business activity.

The clause provides that, upon the occurrence of certain trigger-event, one of the two shareholders (or both, if so agreed) has the power to determine the value of his/her 50% of the share capital. Consequently, he/she put the other shareholder in front of a simple choice: either buy the shares of the “offering” shareholder, at the price he/she has proposed, or sell his/her own share to the “offering” shareholder at the same price.

Who activates the Russian roulette determines the price, which remains fix. The unilateral determination of the price is balanced by the fact that the offeror does not know if she shall buy or sell at the established price: the final choice, in fact, is up to the offeree, who has not determined the price.

The author of this article is Giovannella Condò.

Con la aprobación de la Ley de Presupuestos del Estado para el 2018 (Balance de previsión del Estado para el año 2018 y balance para el trienio 2018-2020, L. 27 diciembre 2017, n. 205 publicada en el Boletín Oficial del Estado n. 302 del 29/12/2017) la facturación electrónica es obligatoria a partir del 1° de enero de 2019 para todos los sujetos sometidos a IVA.

Se discute sin embargo la viabilidad de dicha operación o si es necesario posponer la entrada en vigor de la nueva normativa.

La obligación de la factura electrónica vale sea en caso de venta de bienes que de prestación de servicios efectuada entre operadores IVA (operaciones B2B – Business to Business) sea en el caso en que la venta/prestación sea efectuada da un operador IVA a un consumidor final (operaciones B2C – Business to Consumer).

La emisión de facturas con modalidades distintas de la electrónica será considerada nula.

Están exonerados de las mencionadas disposiciones sólo los sujetos que actúan en “regime di vantaggio” previsto por el artículo art. 27 apartado 3 del Decreto Ley n. 98/11  y los que aplican el  “regime forfettario” previsto por la ley n. 190/14.

Después de una primera fase reservada solamente a la facturación hacia la Administración Pública, se convierte en obligatoria la facturación entre empresas y hacia privados.

La facturación electrónica prevé la emisión de facturas estructuradas según un lenguaje estándar denominado formato XML (extensible Markup Language) firmado digitalmente por quien la emite, transmitidas mediante Sdl (Servicio de intercambio de la Agencia Tributaria) y conservadas obligatoriamente a fines fiscales solo en digital.

La factura electrónica se diferencia por lo tanto de una factura en papel solo por dos aspectos:

Tiene que ser necesariamente redactada utilizando un pc, un tablet, o un smartphone.

Tiene que ser transmitida electrónicamente a través del denominado Sistema de Intercambio (SdI) en caso contrario se considerará no emitida.

Las reglas para redactar, transmitir, recibir y conservar las facturas electrónicas se definen en la resolución n. 89757, del 30 de abril de 2018 publicada en la página web de la Agencia Tributaria.

La facturación electrónica es un sistema completamente digital de emisión y conservación de las facturas que no necesita un suporte en papel y por lo tanto permite ahorrar todos los costes relativos a la impresión, envío y conservación.

El envío de la Factura electrónica puede tener lugar mediante Correo Electrónico Certificado (PEC), mediante intermediario o portales web.

El SdI lleva a cabo controles en relación a la factura electrónica:

  • Verifica que existan las informaciones mínimas obligatorias previstas por la ley.
  • Verifica que los datos del IVA de proveedor o el C.F. del cliente resulten en el Registro Tributario.
  • Verifica que haya sido escrita la dirección telemática.
  • Verifica que haya coherencia entre los importes del imponible, tipo impositivo e IVA.

Si uno de los controles no resulta positivo el SdI “descarta” la factura.  El  “recibo de descarte” se transmite por el SdI a la dirección de Correo Electrónico Certificado o al mismo canal telemático (FTP – Protocolo de Transmisión del File o web service) del que ha recibido la factura electrónica.

Si los controles son positivos, el Sdl entrega la factura electrónica a la dirección telemática que lee en la factura y envía al sujeto que ha transmitido el file un  “recibo de entrega”.

En el caso en que la casilla de Correo Electrónico Certificado o el canal telemático FTP o Web Service donde SdI prueba a entregar el file de la factura no fuesen activos, el SdI mete a disposición el duplicado de la factura en un área reservada y envía al sujeto que ha transmitido el file un recibo de imposibilidad de entrega. La factura se considera emitida por el proveedor pero no todavía definitivamente recibida a fines fiscales por el cliente.

En este caso es conveniente advertir al cliente a través de otros medios de la emisión de la factura.

Sea quien emite que quien recibe la factura electrónica está obligado a conservarla electrónicamente. La conservación electrónica no es la simple memorización en el ordenador. El proceso de conservación electrónica es normalmente suministrado por operadores privados certificados aunque la Agencia Tributaria pone a disposición un servicio de conservación electrónica.

En caso de inobservancia de la obligación de la emisión de la factura electrónica encuentran aplicación las sanciones previstas por el artículo 6 del Decreto Legislativo n. 417/97 que disponen una sanción administrativa de entre noventa y ciento ochenta por ciento del impuesto relativo al imponible no correctamente documentado o registrado en el curso del ejercicio.

Para las operaciones “transfronterizas” (factura de y hacia el extranjero) no existe la obligación de factura electrónica sino que es necesario efectuar una transmisión mensual de datos a la Agencia Tributaria antes del último día del mes sucesivo al de la data del documento emitido o al de la data de recibo del documento relativo a la operación.

La obligación de facturación electrónica aumenta las actividades de prevención de la evasión fiscal. Una obligación que tiene otras ventajas. A través de las facturas emitidas y transmitidas en modalidad digital se reducen no solo los cumplimientos por parte de la Administración Tributaria (generando ahorro de recursos públicos) sino también los márgenes de error en el ciclo de vida de las facturas, con importantes ahorro de tiempo y costes en el medio y largo periodo para empresas y profesionales.

El autor de este artículo es Giovanni Izzo.

In my previous post I wrote about the provisions of Polish law on companies and partnerships related to the non-competition of managers in the limited liability companies.
With this post I will look more deeply into the subject, focusing on the shareholders.

Often investors want to enter into a joint-venture with a partner who is already active on a particular market. It produces a synergy effect and allows avoiding the expensive and time consuming development phase. In such cases, it is important to negotiate and agree on the rules which will apply to the following question: “will shareholders be allowed to set up new (or continue to manage existing) businesses that are (or could be) in competition with the company?”.

Needless to say, unfair competition is prohibited at all times and regardless of the content of the Articles of Association. The real crux of the matter is fair competition.

Polish law does not contain any explicit legal provision prohibiting the shareholder from conducting an activity that is (or may be) competitive towards the Company’s business. This is particularly surprising for German and American clients, as their jurisdictions there are rules – more or less – in this sense.

In Poland, despite the absence of any explicit legal provision, the obligation to refrain from competitive activity derives from the general loyalty that the shareholders owe to the Company. However, they are obliged to a different extent, depending on the company share held. It is consistent with common sense and equity principle that the majority shareholder – which effectively controls the company – should refrain from any competitive activity. On the contrary, the loyalty obligation which rests on a minority shareholder – which only holds a little fraction of the share capital and practically has no influence on the Company – is significantly limited: he/she should not be prohibited from investing in other businesses, even if competitive.

It is worth mentioning that Polish company law provides for a disciplinary instrument that aims to protect the Company from unfair shareholders. All remaining shareholders, who together represent more than 50% of the share capital, can jointly initiate a court proceeding against a shareholder who is acting in an unfair manner. During such proceeding the court examines the case and determines whether the shareholder was obliged to refrain from the competitive activity and, if so, whether he/she violated it. As a result of such proceeding, the court may exclude this unfair-shareholder from the Company. The downside of this solution is that the shares of the excluded unfair-shareholder must be bought back by the remaining shareholders or by a third party, at their actual value. Furthermore, the procedure is expensive and lasting: on the top of this, unless the court issues an interim injunction, the shareholder may continue his/her competitive activity, causing damages to the Company. For these reasons, in many cases this tool will be inefficient, especially if the unfair-shareholder holds a stake of a significant value.

 

As we have just seen, Polish law does not provide a clear rule related to the non-competition by the shareholders and the statutory disciplinary procedure (forced buy-out) in many cases may be inefficient.

Considering that each shareholder of an LLC – even holding only the 1% of shares – has access to all information and documents of the Company, while drafting the Articles of Association, it is crucial to consider the risk deriving from the performance of competitive activities by the shareholders of the Company itself.

The non-competition cause should contain: (i) a precise description of the activity which will be deemed competitive; (iii) its territorial application area; and (iii) its duration. With regard to this last aspect, the clause may provide that a shareholder remains bound even after the sale of his/her shares.

It is advisable to introduce a disciplinary procedure for the violation of this obligation. I suggest a forced redemption of shares, so it is the Company paying the excluded shareholder and not the remaining shareholders. The shares value of this forced redemption may be significantly lower that the market value (e.g. nominal value).

This clause should be inserted also in the Shareholders’ Agreement and it should preferably contain contractual penalties (liquidated damages) for its breach, in favour of every other shareholder.

Obviously, if a shareholder is also member of the Board of Directors, he/she will also be subject to the obligations provided for the members of the Board of Directors, even if the Article of Association does not contain a non-competition clause for shareholders.

En todas las operaciones de M&A una de las cuestiones que merece un capítulo especial en cuanto a su análisis, determinación y negociación son las contingencias fiscales. Aunque las partes puedan estar más o menos de acuerdo en el importe de dichas contingencias, negociar las posibles garantías que ha de otorgar el vendedor a fin de proteger al comprador de una posible reclamación por parte de las autoridades fiscales, el plazo de duración de las mismas, así como acordar los mecanismos de comunicación entre las partes (comprador y vendedor) y de defensa legal en caso de que se produzca tal reclamación, requiere ingentes esfuerzos negociadores.

Cuando la operación de adquisición no se formaliza mediante la compra de las acciones o participaciones sociales de la sociedad que es objeto de adquisición (“shares deal”), sino mediante de la compra de los activos que forman una unidad productiva (“assets deal”), la Ley General Tributaria (LGT) española establece un mecanismo que supone una excepción al principio, establecido por el artículo 42 de la misma Ley, consistente en establecer la responsabilidad solidaria del adquirente de una unidad productiva por las deudas tributarias contraídas por el anterior titular (“responsabilidad por sucesión de empresa”). Esto es, en principio, de acuerdo con el artículo 42 de la LGT, “serán responsables solidarios de la deuda tributaria las personas o entidades que sucedan por cualquier concepto en la titularidad o ejercicio de explotaciones o actividades económicas, por las obligaciones tributarias contraídas del anterior titular y derivadas de su ejercicio”.

Sin embargo, esta responsabilidad solidaria del adquirente se puede limitar mediante la solicitud a las autoridades fiscales del certificado que regula el artículo 175.2 de la LGT. El certificado debe solicitarlo el que pretende adquirir la titularidad de una explotación económica, de conformidad con el titular actual, y la responsabilidad del adquirente queda limitada a las deudas, sanciones y responsabilidades mencionadas en la certificación. Si la certificación se expide sin mencionar importe alguno, o bien la Administración no la expide en el plazo de tres meses desde la solicitud, el solicitante quedará exento de la responsabilidad fiscal solidaria por sucesión de empresa.

La certificación del artículo 175.2 de la LGT puede incluir las deudas por retenciones a cuenta del IRPF, las cuales en el caso de empresas con una gran número de trabajadores pueden ser de un importe elevado, sin embargo la responsabilidad solidaria del adquirente por sueldos, salarios y cuotas de seguridad social no puede limitarse mediante la solicitud de este certificado, sino que siempre sería solidaria con el transmitente de la unidad de negocio.

La solicitud del certificado debe realizarse antes de formalizar la adquisición de la unidad productiva, aunque su emisión tenga lugar después de dicha adquisición (por supuesto, la posición prudente es no cerrar la adquisición hasta no disponer del certificado). La duración de este certificado es de un año, para el caso de obligaciones fiscales periódicas (por ejemplo, Impuesto sobre el Valor Añadido, Impuesto de Sociedades, retenciones a cuenta de Impuesto sobre la Renta de las Personas Físicas), y de tres meses para el caso de obligaciones fiscales no periódicas.

Es muy importante solicitar el certificado correcto (“a efectos de sucesión de empresa de acuerdo con lo establecido en el art. 175.2 de la LGT”), y no confundirlo por ejemplo con el certificado referente a estar al corriente de las obligaciones tributarias, pues abundan en la jurisprudencia los casos de adquirentes de empresas que, habiendo solicitado un certificado erróneo a las autoridades fiscales y habiendo obtenido un certificado que no mostraba responsabilidades fiscales, posteriormente han sido condenados a pagar, en calidad de responsables solidarios, las deudas fiscales de la empresa transmitente.

The purpose of this post is to provide information about (i) the need of Brazilian companies for providing the Country-by-Country Reporting pursuant to the OECD Rules, Action 13 of the Base Erosion and Profit Shifting Actions (“BEPS Actions”) and (ii) the need to disclose the name of the final beneficial owner of entities with equity participation in Brazilian companies, or owners of assets in Brazil.

Country-by-Country Reporting Regulation

Normative Instruction RFB No. 1681 (“IN 1681/2016”) established the rules for the Brazilian companies to be compliant with the Country-by-Country Reporting Regulation (“CbCR”). The CbCR shall be presented annually considering the financial results of the previous fiscal year, as part of the fiscal declaration (ECF, which includes the information related to the corporate tax income return). Such declaration should be filled in accordingly with the list of mandatory information determined by IN 1681/2016 and pursuant to RFB Normative Instruction No. 1,422, of December 19, 2013.

The CbCR is the result of the BEPS Project (Base Erosion and Profit Shifting) of the OECD’s initiative, contained in Action 13 of the BEPS Actions, aiming the enhancement of transparency while taking into consideration compliance costs.

Multinational groups are obliged to deliver the CbCR if consolidated revenues for the fiscal year preceding the tax year of the declaration are equal to or greater than BRL 2.26 billion (or 750 million Euros, or if the local currency of the final controller of the group is equivalent to the mentioned amounts, as of January 31, 2015).

The Brazilian subsidiary is (or may be considered) a substitute of the final controller and, as such, bound to fulfill the CbCR in the following cases:

  • it is the final controller of the multinational group is not obliged to deliver the CbCR in its jurisdiction of residence;
  • the jurisdiction where the ultimate controller is located has signed an international agreement with Brazil, however, still not ratified by the competent authorities before the deadline for delivering the CbCR; or
  • there has been a systemic failure of the jurisdiction of residence of the final controller of the multinational group that has been notified by the Brazilian Federal Revenue Office to the resident entity for tax purposes in Brazil.

In case the Brazilian subsidiary is exempt from submitting the CbCR, it will still need to provide the identification and the jurisdiction of residence for tax purposes of its parent company.

The deadline for providing the information will be the date for completing the ECF, to expire on 30 July 2018 for the fiscal year 2017. Failure to comply will expose the Brazilian subsidiary to the payment of a penalty of BRL 1,500.00 (USD 410 or EUR 340) per month. Submission of an incomplete CbCR may subject the Brazilian subsidiary a fine of 3% over the value omitted, inaccurate or incomplete.

Need to disclose beneficial ownership and how to do it

Brazilian companies are obliged to provide information on the person authorized to represent them, on the respective chain of equity interest, until the individuals characterized as final beneficial owner.

This information shall be provided when a Non-Brazilian entity present its application to obtain the Federal Corporate Taxpayers’ Registry (“CNPJ”). If the Non-Brazilian entity already has a CNPJ, it must update the CNPJ with the beneficial owner information by 31 December 2018.

Obtaining a CNPJ is mandatory for Non-Brazilian entities that have equity participation in Brazilian companies or other assets – financial investments, real estate, airplanes, ships, among others in Brazil.

This obligation is in force by means of the Brazilian Federal Revenue Office Normative Instruction No. 1634 («IN 1634/2016«). IN 1634/2016 contains a list of information to be provided and documents to be delivered for that purpose.

On October 25, 2017, the procedure became mandatory also for Brazilian entities after publication of the ADE COCAD (Executive Declaratory Act – Registration Management General Coordination) No. 9/2017.

Fail to comply with the procedure can result in suspension of the CNPJ. This suspension could result in inability to execute bank transactions, financial investments and obtaining loans and, ultimately, prevent the remittance of dividends to other countries or even the receipt of funds by means of a loan or capital injection from the respective parent companies abroad.

Such information is not protected under fiscal secrecy, but the public employees shall not disclose this information pursuant to functional obligation of not disclosing information unless if summoned by court order.

The requirement for presenting the information on the beneficial owner is already familiar for investors in Brazil. The Brazilian financial institutions are responsible for obtaining information of their client up until the beneficial owner, pursuant to Circular Letter No. 3.461/2009 of the Brazilian Central Bank. The information provided to financial institutions are subject to bank secrecy.

These Brazilian financial institutions are severe on the provision and updating on the foreign parent companies. It is usual for companies with foreign shareholders to receive notices and warnings of possible blocking or closing the accounts if the required documents are not presented in full.

The author of this article is Paulo Yamaguchi

Over the last year, the escalation of cryptocurrencies has aroused a number of issues and controversial debates for the lack of regulation in most jurisdictions, including Italy where the only regulation of the cryptocurrency phenomenon is set by the AML legislation. According to the Italian law, cryptocurrencies do not have legal tender status, the regulators have qualified cryptocurrencies as means of exchange different from e-money, which, however, can be converted into Euro for purchasing virtual currency as for selling such currency; moreover, they can be used to buy both virtual and real goods and services. As a matter of fact, the lack of regulation concerning cryptocurrencies as a form of currency and a financial instrument does not prevent the trade and use of cryptocurrencies not only as means of payment but also as contribution to fund the share capital of limited liability companies.

On July, 18th, the Court of Brescia has denied the validity of a resolution increasing the share capital of a limited liability company subscribed for by certain utility tokens because the relevant contribution (equal to Euro 714,000) didn’t comply with Article 2464 of the Civil Code. The Court has not banned the contribution of cryptocurrencies but based on that case it has remarked the criteria governing contributions in kind which were not met for the subscription of the increase of share capital as resolved by the company; giving that, and starting from this assumption, it is possible to highlight criteria requested by the Italian law to contribute cryptocurrencies into share capital.

Any (tangible and intangible) asset can be contributed into the share capital of joint-stock companies (S.p.A.) and limited liability companies (S.r.l.) to the extent that they have an indisputable economic value (as proved by a sworn appraisal from an expert who issues the relevant report) and a potential market where they can be exchanged and/or converted into cash. The report must be focused on the description of the contributed assets, the reference of the adopted criteria of evaluation, and the certification that their value is, at least, equal to the one assigned at the moment of the subscription of the capital and of the premium, if any. As a matter of fact, the function of the share capital is to guarantee the creditors in relation to the company liabilities, as a consequence it is mandatory that the economic value of the share capital must be indisputable and in compliance with the law, especially when including cryptocurrencies or digital assets.

Moving on the case, the cryptocurrencies contributed were issued by a company based in Bulgaria, they were utility tokens used as mean of payment for buying goods and services on a web platform, owned by the issuers of these digital assets. Hence these tokens were not traded in any exchange platform where it is possible to fix an indisputable exchange rate and then the relevant economic value. Indeed, the Court has reasoned the direct proportion between the value of the contribution into the equity and the existence of exchanges where the value of the cryptocurrency would have been set. Moreover, the Court has stated the lack of enforceability of the tokens contributed. Under the practical side, the contribution of cryptocurrencies has to be made by reporting the private key from the contributor to the company, giving that the enforceability of cryptocurrencies by a pledge can be done subject to the collaboration and the consent of the contributor who has to disclose the private key; should the contributor refuse to disclose the private key, the enforceability of the pledge on the tokens would be undermined.

To sum up, in theory the contribution of cryptocurrencies into equity is not forbidden under the Italian law, however giving its questionable nature, it is still controversial how to guarantee the compliance with the mandatory requirements for the contribution in kind.

This case history and the order of the Court of Brescia give us the opportunity to provide the Italian picture on cryptocurrencies.

The Italian crypto-scenario is quite effervescent since the beginning of 2017; indeed, Italy was the first European country to define the virtual currency and the exchanger according to the new AML legislation. This is not strange considering that the anonymity surrounding cryptocurrencies, which varies from complete anonymity to pseudo-anonymity, prevents cryptocurrency transactions from being adequately monitored, allowing shady transactions to occur outside of the regulatory perimeter and criminal organisations to use cryptocurrencies to obtain easy access to «clean cash». Anonymity is also the major issue when it comes to tax evasion.

The AML Law

Legislative Decree no. 90 of May 25th 2017, which reformed legislative decree no. 231/2007, introduced definitions of exchanges and virtual currencies and provided a set of rules for the exchanges to comply with the anti-money laundering rules.

Virtual currency means “a digital representation of value that is neither issued by a central bank or a public authority, nor attached to a legally established fiat currency, which can be used as a means of exchange for the purchase of goods and services and transferred, stored and traded electronically.” Virtual currencies within the scope of AMLD5 and of the Italian AML Law are those that can be transferred, stored and traded electronically. Until now, other virtual currency schemes are not in scope, including virtual currencies used to attain goods and services without requiring exchange into legal tender or similar instruments, or the use of a custodian wallet provider.

Exchanges are defined as virtual service providers: “any natural or legal person providing professional services to third parties for the use, the exchange, the related storage of virtual currencies and for the conversion from or in currencies having legal tender [.]” Given this scope, they are subject to anti-money laundering regulations and, therefore, they have to obtain a sort of licence and be listed in a special register to operate in Italy. Considering this definition, it seems that a material number of key players are not included in AML law, for example miners and pure cryptocurrency exchanges that are not custodian wallet providers, hardware and software wallet providers, trading platforms and coin offerors. This choice of the legislator leaves blind spots in the fight against money laundering, terrorist financing and tax evasion. However, a decree of the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF) is under discussion, which seeks to extend the monitoring not only to exchanges but also to those subjects that accept cryptocurrencies for the sale of services and goods.

As said, apart from the AML Law, there is a lack of regulation which undermines the grade of protection of users and investors.

The protection of users/investors

One of the issues which prevents or undermines the grade of the protection is that crypto markets and crypto players can be located in jurisdictions that do not have effective money laundering and terrorist financing controls in place or do not have any regulation for their offering to the investors. Moreover, against the risk of default of the platform or the exchanges there is very little to do to protect investors especially at a cross-border level.

The protection of users/investors depends on several factors, the first one being the nature of the cryptocurrencies in question and the crypto-platforms (i.e. what they are, where they are based and whether they are compliant with the Italian law).

The nature of the cryptocurrencies has to be identified on a case-by-case basis. If qualified as securities (standard financial products which are transferable and generate profits), the prospectus rules should apply, this meaning that a prospectus is required under the Consolidated Financial Law (“Testo Unico Finanza” or “TUF”) to disclose significant financial risks to investors. If they are a hybrid made up of a means of payment and an investment component, the application of the TUF provisions is controversial.

From a criminal perspective, users/investors can be protected in case of fraud irrespective of the above factors. The general remedies under the criminal law apply.

The landmarks for investors’ protection are:

  • The AML Law defining the subjects obliged to declare their activities in the cryptocurrencies world (e. the custodian wallet providers and the virtual currency exchanges);
  • The TUF rules, inter alia, the prospectus regulation; and
  • The Consumers’ Code rules the mandatory provisions on the «form and pre-contractual information».

The common ground of civil actions is the disclosure of pre-contractual information to investors and the compliance of crypto-platforms and exchanges with the Italian law.

Civil actions might be brought against platforms:

  • Pursuant to Articles 50 and 67 of the Consumers’ Code, according to which any contract must provide consumers with mandatory «pre-contractual information».
  • Pursuant to Article 23 of the TUF, according to which any contract providing investment services must be in writing and “failure to comply with the prescribed form shall render the contract null and void”.

In 2017, the Court of Verona declared a contract null and void because of its breach of the mandatory provisions on the «form and pre-contractual information» and ordered the refund of the money to the consumer. From the consumers’ perspective, all the information about the nature, the risks and the features of any cryptocurrency must be provided in advance to individuals in a transparent manner. As a matter of fact, the Court of Verona has reasoned that any online agreement between parties, implying the exchange of real money for virtual money, represents a financial service or rather “a paid service.” The Court judged that the contract between the exchange and the Italian consumer was null and void, as the IT service firm breached the obligations set forth by Articles 50 on «distance contracts» and 67 of the Consumers’ Code, which provide as mandatory the «form and pre-contractual information» to be provided to consumers. Lastly, the Court ordered to return to the Italian plaintiff the amount invested in cryptocurrencies.

For the sake of completeness, the consumers’ protection has been achieved also by the Italian Antitrust Authority (i.e. the non-governmental organization focused on consumer protection), which stopped the operations of several affiliates of OneCoin, the digital currency investment scheme widely accused of fraud.

In 2017, Consob (National Authority for the Stock Exchange) banned the advertisement and then the offer of investment portfolios containing cryptocurrencies, made in breach of the prospectus regulation.

Pursuant to Article 101, Par. 4, Part c) of the TUF, Consob has prohibited the advertising – via the website www.coinspace1.com – of the public offer for ‘cryptocurrency extraction packages’ launched by Coinspace Ltd (Resolution no. 19968 of April 20th 2017). The offer had already been the subject of a precautionary 90-day suspension. Moreover, on December 6th, 2017, pursuant to resolution no. 20207, under Article 99, paragraph 1, letter d) of the TUF, Consob banned the offer to the Italian public of «investment portfolios» carried out without the required authorizations by Cryp Trade Capital through the website https://cryp.trade. A few months later, in March 2018, the website https://cryp.trade was subjected to precautionary seizure by the Criminal Court of Rome pursuant to Article 166 of the TUF (a criminal provision which punishes those who carry out financial services and activities without Consob’s authorization). The common ground of these resolutions issued by Consob is the absolute lack of the mandatory information and prospectus set forth by the TUF for entities providing financial services to Italian investors trading in cryptocurrencies and cryptocurrency-related products. Given the application of the TUF, pursuant to Article 23, any contracts for the provision of investment services must be in writing and “failure to comply with the prescribed form shall render the contract null and void”.

Both resolutions have remarked how the Italian versions of the websites were the evidence that those offers were targeted to the Italian market, therefore Consob has set the criteria to identify the territoriality of the crypto-platforms subject to the Italian law which is: “where the cryptocurrencies are intended to be offered to the public”.

To complete this overview, some highlights follow on ICOs and the tax regime of cryptocurrencies in Italy.

ICOs

Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) are not regulated by the Italian law. In ICOs the funding collected by a start-up could also be exchanged for an equity token (very similar to securities and then embodying an interest in the issuing start-up) or a utility token, which entitles the holder to exchange it for goods or services provided by the same start-up.

ICOs are very controversial (even if not yet officially banned by Consob), as they issue equity tokens that, due to their similarity to securities, can be offered to the public of investors only by entities duly authorized by the regulators, according to the TUF. As far as utility tokens, in theory their issuance might be allowed subject to a strict set of contractual rules, in order to protect investors as much as possible. However, the ICOs market has not taken off, yet.

The tax regime

For Italian tax purposes, the taxation of cryptocurrencies is not regulated by Law. Nonetheless, the Italian Revenue Agency issued a Ruling in May 2018 providing that gains on virtual currency for individuals trading outside a business activity are treated as gains arising from the disposal of traditional foreign currency. Consequently, gains relating to forward sale are always taxable, rather gains relating to forward sale are taxable only to the extent that, during the tax period, the average amount of the overall virtual currency maintained by the taxpayer exceeds the equivalent of EUR 51,645.69 for seven days in a row (the exchange rate to use is the one given by the website where the individual carried out the transaction). Any gain is therefore subject to 26% withholding tax. Additionally, the taxpayer must comply with the tax monitoring duties in the Individual Tax Return though he is not exempted from wealth tax (IVAFE), to the extent that virtual currency is not held through institutions or other authorized intermediaries by the Bank of Italy.

The same regulatory uncertainty put on the taxation of corporations trading in virtual currency. In a Ruling issued in September 2018, the authorities submitted that exchanges of bitcoins for legal currency constitute, for income tax purposes, a taxable event subject to Ires (24%) and Irap (3.9%).

For indirect tax purposes, the authorities confirmed that trading in bitcoins and other virtual currencies is similar to the activity of an intermediary negotiating in financial instruments, and, as a consequence, it is exempt from VAT under the Italian provision implementing article 135(1)(e) of the VAT Directive (2006/112). Therefore, when bitcoins are exchanged for real currencies, no VAT is due on the value of the bitcoins themselves.

The author of this post is Milena Prisco.

Poland – Non-competition obligation of LLC shareholders

23 octubre 2018

  • Polonia
  • Derecho Societario

La fracción parlamentaria de Morena (partido con mayoría en el Congreso) presentó recientemente una iniciativa de reforma a la Ley Federal de Trabajo (LFT), que entre otros tiene por objeto incorporar la obligación de los patrones de implementar, un protocolo para prevenir la discriminación por razones de género y atención de casos de violencia y acoso sexual.

Si bien este tipo de conductas ya se encuentran contempladas en la LFT como una causal de rescisión para el patrón y el trabajador, previendo una sanción pecuniaria para el patrón que las realice, tolere o permita que oscila entre $18K pesos (US $1K) a $365K pesos (US $20K) aprox., con la reforma se pretende garantizar la existencia de un mecanismo que proteja de manera efectiva el derecho del trabajador a un trato digno y de igualdad.

La Secretaría de Trabajo y Previsión Social (STPS) actualmente cuenta con un modelo de protocolo de atención frente a casos de violencia laboral con el fin de fomentar en las empresas mexicanas la implementación de políticas y acciones para detectar, prevenir y atender este tipo de situaciones.

La STPS propone la creación de una comisión constituida por representantes de la empresa y los trabajadores, cuyas principales funciones serían:

•       Implementar el protocolo en comento;

•       Recibir, atender y resolver las quejas que presenten los trabajadores sobre violencia laboral; así como

•       Imponer las sanciones que correspondan a los trabajadores en el ámbito laboral, las cuales deberán estar previstas en el Reglamento Interior de Trabajo que rija dentro de la empresa.

En aras de que el protocolo sea un mecanismo efectivo que combata este tipo de conductas dentro de las empresas, se recomienda que el mismo establezca como mínimo:

·       Procesos de diagnóstico que permitan identificar el nivel de riesgo de la empresa para definir las medidas preventivas más adecuadas.

·       Acciones de sensibilización y capacitación que promueva la no violencia laboral, permita a los trabajadores identificar con toda claridad si son víctimas de este tipo de conductas, las instancias a las cuales pueden acudir y los pasos a seguir para la presentación de una queja.

·       Mecanismos para que los trabajadores puedan denunciar este tipo de hechos.

·       Procesos para la investigación de las conductas denuncias.

·       Lineamientos para determinar las sanciones aplicables para los trabajadores que incurran en este tipo de conductas.

Considerando que la aprobación de esta reforma es inminente y a fin de garantizar el cumplimiento de la misma a la fecha de su publicación y entrada en vigor, resulta conveniente que las empresas inicien con la implementación de sus sistemas de compliance, para evitar cualquier sanción que pudiera derivar de alguna visita de inspección por parte de la STPS.

Cabe señalar que estos sistemas no sólo cumplen una función de cumplimiento normativo, sino que también traen consigo múltiples beneficios para las empresas, en materia de prevención de riesgos operativos, laborales y legales.

Es sabido que las prácticas denigratorias en el ambiente laboral son una de las principales causas del ausentismo, de rotación personal y de disminución en el rendimiento. Este tipo de incidencias tienen repercusiones económicas negativas para las empresas, tanto en sus costos como en su productividad.

La implementación de un sistema efectivo de compliance permite asegurar un comportamiento de respeto dentro de la organización, creando un ambiente laboral sano que ayuda a reducir estas incidencias y a potenciar las capacidades del capital humano, para que las empresas puedan cumplir con sus propósitos comerciales y financieros.

Estos sistemas también ayudan a disminuir el riesgo de que las empresas queden expuestas a reclamaciones de esta índole por parte de sus trabajadores, así como a las contingencias y responsabilidades que pudieran derivar de las mismas, tanto en el ámbito laboral, civil y penal. Para descargar la nota completa de clic aquí.

As I have already mentioned in my previous article, the most popular type of company set up in Poland is the Limited Liability Company (LLC). Many foreign investors choose this legal structure for its simplicity and low costs, and often – especially in the smaller ones – investors themselves wish to manage (or co-manage) the company, so they become members of the Management Board.

However, many of them do not pay due attention to legal consequences of such a decision and are not aware of the legal liability connected with this position. I am compelled to underline that many foreign clients invest in Poland in a form of an LLC being groundlessly convinced that the limited liability refers to the whole business in Poland and all the people involved in it. They think that, if something goes wrong and the business of a subsidiary fails, they can just close it, leave the debts behind and start somewhere else.

This is not the case: The members of the Management Board, indeed, could be forced to pay a high price for it. Let’s take a look at this topic.

According to the Polish company law the Management Board Members of an LLC are jointly and severally responsible for the debts of the company in case it does not satisfy its creditors.

Basically, in order to pursue a Member of the Management Board a creditor needs to sue the company first and initiate the enforcement proceedings. In case the enforcement proceedings turn out to be totally or partly ineffective for the lack of the company’s assets – this fact will be confirmed by the bailiff. On this basis the creditor is entitled to sue the member of the Management Board and demand all the amounts that the company didn’t pay to him/her as well as the interest and costs of the court proceedings, including the attorney’s fees. As you may imagine, the amount at stake is high.

How can a Member of the Management Board defend from the liability for the company’s debts? By proving one of the following:

  1. he/she filed for company’s bankruptcy in a due time;
  2. the court declared the restructuring proceedings towards the company in a due time,
  3. it is not his/her fault the non-filing for the bankruptcy or restructuring proceedings in a due time;
  4. the creditor did not incur damage due to the fact that the aforementioned procedures were not initiated in a due time.

The burden of proof shall lie with the Manager. In other words, if he/she needs to prove at least one of those circumstances, while the plaintiff only needs to prove the existence of an unpaid company’s debt.

Establishing the “due time” is a crucial point. It is considered appropriate to file for bankruptcy when:

  • the company for 3 consecutive months has problems with invoices paying; or
  • the company is indebted above the value of its assets for more than 2 years; or

Often an appalling event proving that the company is in serious trouble arises when the bank refused to continue the financing or worse, terminates the loan and no other bank is wishing to provide the company with the financing. .

By contrast, the restructuring may be initiated when the company is still in a relatively good condition: through an agreement with creditors for the deferment or reduction of some payments together with the implementation of certain business improvements, the restructuring agreement may bring the company back into business. Despite the restructuring being relatively expensive, it allows to maintain the company alive, overcome difficulties and get back into the game.

When it is too late or there is no good recovery plan, the only remaining solution is the liquidation of the company within the insolvency proceedings. However, also these proceedings provoke expenses: the insolvent company needs to have resources to finance the judicial fees, the accountants, the receiver’s fees, the attorney’s fees, the employee’s salaries and all other costs during the insolvency process.

If the company does not have enough assets, the court will not even open the insolvency proceedings and if, during the proceedings a shortage of funds arises, the proceedings will be closed.

If the demand for opening of the insolvency or restructuring proceedings is filed too late, the Manager cannot release himself/herself from the liability for the debts of the company and all the damages incurred by the company’s creditors as a result of a belated opening of the insolvency proceedings. As the damage is often equivalent of the unpaid debt, the creditors have two separate legal bases to sue the Management Board Members and get back from them the money they didn’t get from the company.

In extreme cases, when the negligence of the Management Board is truly gross and the damage caused to creditors due to the belated filing for bankruptcy is very high, the court may impose on the Management Board Members a prohibition of running enterprise and holding positions in enterprises.

My advice is to accept the position of Management Board Members with extreme caution and, when the first signs of corporate difficulty arise, to react immediately and contact a lawyer expert in the matter: not only for the company’s sake, but also to protect their own assets and interest.

The majority principle, a pivotal aspect in limited companies, goes into crisis in situations where the share capital is equally divided between two opposing shareholders (50% each). In such hypotheses the approval of decisions is possible only with unanimity and this, obviously, frequently leads to deadlock situations that paralyze the management of the company.

The irreconcilable dissent among the shareholders can lead to the dissolution of the company. To avoid this, several strategies have been found, and one of these is the so-called “Russian Roulette Clause”.

The Shareholders may agree that, in deadlock situations, the Russian Roulette clause comes into play, with the effect of redistributing the shares and, consequently, starting again the business activity.

The clause provides that, upon the occurrence of certain trigger-event, one of the two shareholders (or both, if so agreed) has the power to determine the value of his/her 50% of the share capital. Consequently, he/she put the other shareholder in front of a simple choice: either buy the shares of the “offering” shareholder, at the price he/she has proposed, or sell his/her own share to the “offering” shareholder at the same price.

Who activates the Russian roulette determines the price, which remains fix. The unilateral determination of the price is balanced by the fact that the offeror does not know if she shall buy or sell at the established price: the final choice, in fact, is up to the offeree, who has not determined the price.

The author of this article is Giovannella Condò.

Con la aprobación de la Ley de Presupuestos del Estado para el 2018 (Balance de previsión del Estado para el año 2018 y balance para el trienio 2018-2020, L. 27 diciembre 2017, n. 205 publicada en el Boletín Oficial del Estado n. 302 del 29/12/2017) la facturación electrónica es obligatoria a partir del 1° de enero de 2019 para todos los sujetos sometidos a IVA.

Se discute sin embargo la viabilidad de dicha operación o si es necesario posponer la entrada en vigor de la nueva normativa.

La obligación de la factura electrónica vale sea en caso de venta de bienes que de prestación de servicios efectuada entre operadores IVA (operaciones B2B – Business to Business) sea en el caso en que la venta/prestación sea efectuada da un operador IVA a un consumidor final (operaciones B2C – Business to Consumer).

La emisión de facturas con modalidades distintas de la electrónica será considerada nula.

Están exonerados de las mencionadas disposiciones sólo los sujetos que actúan en “regime di vantaggio” previsto por el artículo art. 27 apartado 3 del Decreto Ley n. 98/11  y los que aplican el  “regime forfettario” previsto por la ley n. 190/14.

Después de una primera fase reservada solamente a la facturación hacia la Administración Pública, se convierte en obligatoria la facturación entre empresas y hacia privados.

La facturación electrónica prevé la emisión de facturas estructuradas según un lenguaje estándar denominado formato XML (extensible Markup Language) firmado digitalmente por quien la emite, transmitidas mediante Sdl (Servicio de intercambio de la Agencia Tributaria) y conservadas obligatoriamente a fines fiscales solo en digital.

La factura electrónica se diferencia por lo tanto de una factura en papel solo por dos aspectos:

Tiene que ser necesariamente redactada utilizando un pc, un tablet, o un smartphone.

Tiene que ser transmitida electrónicamente a través del denominado Sistema de Intercambio (SdI) en caso contrario se considerará no emitida.

Las reglas para redactar, transmitir, recibir y conservar las facturas electrónicas se definen en la resolución n. 89757, del 30 de abril de 2018 publicada en la página web de la Agencia Tributaria.

La facturación electrónica es un sistema completamente digital de emisión y conservación de las facturas que no necesita un suporte en papel y por lo tanto permite ahorrar todos los costes relativos a la impresión, envío y conservación.

El envío de la Factura electrónica puede tener lugar mediante Correo Electrónico Certificado (PEC), mediante intermediario o portales web.

El SdI lleva a cabo controles en relación a la factura electrónica:

  • Verifica que existan las informaciones mínimas obligatorias previstas por la ley.
  • Verifica que los datos del IVA de proveedor o el C.F. del cliente resulten en el Registro Tributario.
  • Verifica que haya sido escrita la dirección telemática.
  • Verifica que haya coherencia entre los importes del imponible, tipo impositivo e IVA.

Si uno de los controles no resulta positivo el SdI “descarta” la factura.  El  “recibo de descarte” se transmite por el SdI a la dirección de Correo Electrónico Certificado o al mismo canal telemático (FTP – Protocolo de Transmisión del File o web service) del que ha recibido la factura electrónica.

Si los controles son positivos, el Sdl entrega la factura electrónica a la dirección telemática que lee en la factura y envía al sujeto que ha transmitido el file un  “recibo de entrega”.

En el caso en que la casilla de Correo Electrónico Certificado o el canal telemático FTP o Web Service donde SdI prueba a entregar el file de la factura no fuesen activos, el SdI mete a disposición el duplicado de la factura en un área reservada y envía al sujeto que ha transmitido el file un recibo de imposibilidad de entrega. La factura se considera emitida por el proveedor pero no todavía definitivamente recibida a fines fiscales por el cliente.

En este caso es conveniente advertir al cliente a través de otros medios de la emisión de la factura.

Sea quien emite que quien recibe la factura electrónica está obligado a conservarla electrónicamente. La conservación electrónica no es la simple memorización en el ordenador. El proceso de conservación electrónica es normalmente suministrado por operadores privados certificados aunque la Agencia Tributaria pone a disposición un servicio de conservación electrónica.

En caso de inobservancia de la obligación de la emisión de la factura electrónica encuentran aplicación las sanciones previstas por el artículo 6 del Decreto Legislativo n. 417/97 que disponen una sanción administrativa de entre noventa y ciento ochenta por ciento del impuesto relativo al imponible no correctamente documentado o registrado en el curso del ejercicio.

Para las operaciones “transfronterizas” (factura de y hacia el extranjero) no existe la obligación de factura electrónica sino que es necesario efectuar una transmisión mensual de datos a la Agencia Tributaria antes del último día del mes sucesivo al de la data del documento emitido o al de la data de recibo del documento relativo a la operación.

La obligación de facturación electrónica aumenta las actividades de prevención de la evasión fiscal. Una obligación que tiene otras ventajas. A través de las facturas emitidas y transmitidas en modalidad digital se reducen no solo los cumplimientos por parte de la Administración Tributaria (generando ahorro de recursos públicos) sino también los márgenes de error en el ciclo de vida de las facturas, con importantes ahorro de tiempo y costes en el medio y largo periodo para empresas y profesionales.

El autor de este artículo es Giovanni Izzo.

In my previous post I wrote about the provisions of Polish law on companies and partnerships related to the non-competition of managers in the limited liability companies.
With this post I will look more deeply into the subject, focusing on the shareholders.

Often investors want to enter into a joint-venture with a partner who is already active on a particular market. It produces a synergy effect and allows avoiding the expensive and time consuming development phase. In such cases, it is important to negotiate and agree on the rules which will apply to the following question: “will shareholders be allowed to set up new (or continue to manage existing) businesses that are (or could be) in competition with the company?”.

Needless to say, unfair competition is prohibited at all times and regardless of the content of the Articles of Association. The real crux of the matter is fair competition.

Polish law does not contain any explicit legal provision prohibiting the shareholder from conducting an activity that is (or may be) competitive towards the Company’s business. This is particularly surprising for German and American clients, as their jurisdictions there are rules – more or less – in this sense.

In Poland, despite the absence of any explicit legal provision, the obligation to refrain from competitive activity derives from the general loyalty that the shareholders owe to the Company. However, they are obliged to a different extent, depending on the company share held. It is consistent with common sense and equity principle that the majority shareholder – which effectively controls the company – should refrain from any competitive activity. On the contrary, the loyalty obligation which rests on a minority shareholder – which only holds a little fraction of the share capital and practically has no influence on the Company – is significantly limited: he/she should not be prohibited from investing in other businesses, even if competitive.

It is worth mentioning that Polish company law provides for a disciplinary instrument that aims to protect the Company from unfair shareholders. All remaining shareholders, who together represent more than 50% of the share capital, can jointly initiate a court proceeding against a shareholder who is acting in an unfair manner. During such proceeding the court examines the case and determines whether the shareholder was obliged to refrain from the competitive activity and, if so, whether he/she violated it. As a result of such proceeding, the court may exclude this unfair-shareholder from the Company. The downside of this solution is that the shares of the excluded unfair-shareholder must be bought back by the remaining shareholders or by a third party, at their actual value. Furthermore, the procedure is expensive and lasting: on the top of this, unless the court issues an interim injunction, the shareholder may continue his/her competitive activity, causing damages to the Company. For these reasons, in many cases this tool will be inefficient, especially if the unfair-shareholder holds a stake of a significant value.

 

As we have just seen, Polish law does not provide a clear rule related to the non-competition by the shareholders and the statutory disciplinary procedure (forced buy-out) in many cases may be inefficient.

Considering that each shareholder of an LLC – even holding only the 1% of shares – has access to all information and documents of the Company, while drafting the Articles of Association, it is crucial to consider the risk deriving from the performance of competitive activities by the shareholders of the Company itself.

The non-competition cause should contain: (i) a precise description of the activity which will be deemed competitive; (iii) its territorial application area; and (iii) its duration. With regard to this last aspect, the clause may provide that a shareholder remains bound even after the sale of his/her shares.

It is advisable to introduce a disciplinary procedure for the violation of this obligation. I suggest a forced redemption of shares, so it is the Company paying the excluded shareholder and not the remaining shareholders. The shares value of this forced redemption may be significantly lower that the market value (e.g. nominal value).

This clause should be inserted also in the Shareholders’ Agreement and it should preferably contain contractual penalties (liquidated damages) for its breach, in favour of every other shareholder.

Obviously, if a shareholder is also member of the Board of Directors, he/she will also be subject to the obligations provided for the members of the Board of Directors, even if the Article of Association does not contain a non-competition clause for shareholders.

En todas las operaciones de M&A una de las cuestiones que merece un capítulo especial en cuanto a su análisis, determinación y negociación son las contingencias fiscales. Aunque las partes puedan estar más o menos de acuerdo en el importe de dichas contingencias, negociar las posibles garantías que ha de otorgar el vendedor a fin de proteger al comprador de una posible reclamación por parte de las autoridades fiscales, el plazo de duración de las mismas, así como acordar los mecanismos de comunicación entre las partes (comprador y vendedor) y de defensa legal en caso de que se produzca tal reclamación, requiere ingentes esfuerzos negociadores.

Cuando la operación de adquisición no se formaliza mediante la compra de las acciones o participaciones sociales de la sociedad que es objeto de adquisición (“shares deal”), sino mediante de la compra de los activos que forman una unidad productiva (“assets deal”), la Ley General Tributaria (LGT) española establece un mecanismo que supone una excepción al principio, establecido por el artículo 42 de la misma Ley, consistente en establecer la responsabilidad solidaria del adquirente de una unidad productiva por las deudas tributarias contraídas por el anterior titular (“responsabilidad por sucesión de empresa”). Esto es, en principio, de acuerdo con el artículo 42 de la LGT, “serán responsables solidarios de la deuda tributaria las personas o entidades que sucedan por cualquier concepto en la titularidad o ejercicio de explotaciones o actividades económicas, por las obligaciones tributarias contraídas del anterior titular y derivadas de su ejercicio”.

Sin embargo, esta responsabilidad solidaria del adquirente se puede limitar mediante la solicitud a las autoridades fiscales del certificado que regula el artículo 175.2 de la LGT. El certificado debe solicitarlo el que pretende adquirir la titularidad de una explotación económica, de conformidad con el titular actual, y la responsabilidad del adquirente queda limitada a las deudas, sanciones y responsabilidades mencionadas en la certificación. Si la certificación se expide sin mencionar importe alguno, o bien la Administración no la expide en el plazo de tres meses desde la solicitud, el solicitante quedará exento de la responsabilidad fiscal solidaria por sucesión de empresa.

La certificación del artículo 175.2 de la LGT puede incluir las deudas por retenciones a cuenta del IRPF, las cuales en el caso de empresas con una gran número de trabajadores pueden ser de un importe elevado, sin embargo la responsabilidad solidaria del adquirente por sueldos, salarios y cuotas de seguridad social no puede limitarse mediante la solicitud de este certificado, sino que siempre sería solidaria con el transmitente de la unidad de negocio.

La solicitud del certificado debe realizarse antes de formalizar la adquisición de la unidad productiva, aunque su emisión tenga lugar después de dicha adquisición (por supuesto, la posición prudente es no cerrar la adquisición hasta no disponer del certificado). La duración de este certificado es de un año, para el caso de obligaciones fiscales periódicas (por ejemplo, Impuesto sobre el Valor Añadido, Impuesto de Sociedades, retenciones a cuenta de Impuesto sobre la Renta de las Personas Físicas), y de tres meses para el caso de obligaciones fiscales no periódicas.

Es muy importante solicitar el certificado correcto (“a efectos de sucesión de empresa de acuerdo con lo establecido en el art. 175.2 de la LGT”), y no confundirlo por ejemplo con el certificado referente a estar al corriente de las obligaciones tributarias, pues abundan en la jurisprudencia los casos de adquirentes de empresas que, habiendo solicitado un certificado erróneo a las autoridades fiscales y habiendo obtenido un certificado que no mostraba responsabilidades fiscales, posteriormente han sido condenados a pagar, en calidad de responsables solidarios, las deudas fiscales de la empresa transmitente.

The purpose of this post is to provide information about (i) the need of Brazilian companies for providing the Country-by-Country Reporting pursuant to the OECD Rules, Action 13 of the Base Erosion and Profit Shifting Actions (“BEPS Actions”) and (ii) the need to disclose the name of the final beneficial owner of entities with equity participation in Brazilian companies, or owners of assets in Brazil.

Country-by-Country Reporting Regulation

Normative Instruction RFB No. 1681 (“IN 1681/2016”) established the rules for the Brazilian companies to be compliant with the Country-by-Country Reporting Regulation (“CbCR”). The CbCR shall be presented annually considering the financial results of the previous fiscal year, as part of the fiscal declaration (ECF, which includes the information related to the corporate tax income return). Such declaration should be filled in accordingly with the list of mandatory information determined by IN 1681/2016 and pursuant to RFB Normative Instruction No. 1,422, of December 19, 2013.

The CbCR is the result of the BEPS Project (Base Erosion and Profit Shifting) of the OECD’s initiative, contained in Action 13 of the BEPS Actions, aiming the enhancement of transparency while taking into consideration compliance costs.

Multinational groups are obliged to deliver the CbCR if consolidated revenues for the fiscal year preceding the tax year of the declaration are equal to or greater than BRL 2.26 billion (or 750 million Euros, or if the local currency of the final controller of the group is equivalent to the mentioned amounts, as of January 31, 2015).

The Brazilian subsidiary is (or may be considered) a substitute of the final controller and, as such, bound to fulfill the CbCR in the following cases:

  • it is the final controller of the multinational group is not obliged to deliver the CbCR in its jurisdiction of residence;
  • the jurisdiction where the ultimate controller is located has signed an international agreement with Brazil, however, still not ratified by the competent authorities before the deadline for delivering the CbCR; or
  • there has been a systemic failure of the jurisdiction of residence of the final controller of the multinational group that has been notified by the Brazilian Federal Revenue Office to the resident entity for tax purposes in Brazil.

In case the Brazilian subsidiary is exempt from submitting the CbCR, it will still need to provide the identification and the jurisdiction of residence for tax purposes of its parent company.

The deadline for providing the information will be the date for completing the ECF, to expire on 30 July 2018 for the fiscal year 2017. Failure to comply will expose the Brazilian subsidiary to the payment of a penalty of BRL 1,500.00 (USD 410 or EUR 340) per month. Submission of an incomplete CbCR may subject the Brazilian subsidiary a fine of 3% over the value omitted, inaccurate or incomplete.

Need to disclose beneficial ownership and how to do it

Brazilian companies are obliged to provide information on the person authorized to represent them, on the respective chain of equity interest, until the individuals characterized as final beneficial owner.

This information shall be provided when a Non-Brazilian entity present its application to obtain the Federal Corporate Taxpayers’ Registry (“CNPJ”). If the Non-Brazilian entity already has a CNPJ, it must update the CNPJ with the beneficial owner information by 31 December 2018.

Obtaining a CNPJ is mandatory for Non-Brazilian entities that have equity participation in Brazilian companies or other assets – financial investments, real estate, airplanes, ships, among others in Brazil.

This obligation is in force by means of the Brazilian Federal Revenue Office Normative Instruction No. 1634 («IN 1634/2016«). IN 1634/2016 contains a list of information to be provided and documents to be delivered for that purpose.

On October 25, 2017, the procedure became mandatory also for Brazilian entities after publication of the ADE COCAD (Executive Declaratory Act – Registration Management General Coordination) No. 9/2017.

Fail to comply with the procedure can result in suspension of the CNPJ. This suspension could result in inability to execute bank transactions, financial investments and obtaining loans and, ultimately, prevent the remittance of dividends to other countries or even the receipt of funds by means of a loan or capital injection from the respective parent companies abroad.

Such information is not protected under fiscal secrecy, but the public employees shall not disclose this information pursuant to functional obligation of not disclosing information unless if summoned by court order.

The requirement for presenting the information on the beneficial owner is already familiar for investors in Brazil. The Brazilian financial institutions are responsible for obtaining information of their client up until the beneficial owner, pursuant to Circular Letter No. 3.461/2009 of the Brazilian Central Bank. The information provided to financial institutions are subject to bank secrecy.

These Brazilian financial institutions are severe on the provision and updating on the foreign parent companies. It is usual for companies with foreign shareholders to receive notices and warnings of possible blocking or closing the accounts if the required documents are not presented in full.

The author of this article is Paulo Yamaguchi

Over the last year, the escalation of cryptocurrencies has aroused a number of issues and controversial debates for the lack of regulation in most jurisdictions, including Italy where the only regulation of the cryptocurrency phenomenon is set by the AML legislation. According to the Italian law, cryptocurrencies do not have legal tender status, the regulators have qualified cryptocurrencies as means of exchange different from e-money, which, however, can be converted into Euro for purchasing virtual currency as for selling such currency; moreover, they can be used to buy both virtual and real goods and services. As a matter of fact, the lack of regulation concerning cryptocurrencies as a form of currency and a financial instrument does not prevent the trade and use of cryptocurrencies not only as means of payment but also as contribution to fund the share capital of limited liability companies.

On July, 18th, the Court of Brescia has denied the validity of a resolution increasing the share capital of a limited liability company subscribed for by certain utility tokens because the relevant contribution (equal to Euro 714,000) didn’t comply with Article 2464 of the Civil Code. The Court has not banned the contribution of cryptocurrencies but based on that case it has remarked the criteria governing contributions in kind which were not met for the subscription of the increase of share capital as resolved by the company; giving that, and starting from this assumption, it is possible to highlight criteria requested by the Italian law to contribute cryptocurrencies into share capital.

Any (tangible and intangible) asset can be contributed into the share capital of joint-stock companies (S.p.A.) and limited liability companies (S.r.l.) to the extent that they have an indisputable economic value (as proved by a sworn appraisal from an expert who issues the relevant report) and a potential market where they can be exchanged and/or converted into cash. The report must be focused on the description of the contributed assets, the reference of the adopted criteria of evaluation, and the certification that their value is, at least, equal to the one assigned at the moment of the subscription of the capital and of the premium, if any. As a matter of fact, the function of the share capital is to guarantee the creditors in relation to the company liabilities, as a consequence it is mandatory that the economic value of the share capital must be indisputable and in compliance with the law, especially when including cryptocurrencies or digital assets.

Moving on the case, the cryptocurrencies contributed were issued by a company based in Bulgaria, they were utility tokens used as mean of payment for buying goods and services on a web platform, owned by the issuers of these digital assets. Hence these tokens were not traded in any exchange platform where it is possible to fix an indisputable exchange rate and then the relevant economic value. Indeed, the Court has reasoned the direct proportion between the value of the contribution into the equity and the existence of exchanges where the value of the cryptocurrency would have been set. Moreover, the Court has stated the lack of enforceability of the tokens contributed. Under the practical side, the contribution of cryptocurrencies has to be made by reporting the private key from the contributor to the company, giving that the enforceability of cryptocurrencies by a pledge can be done subject to the collaboration and the consent of the contributor who has to disclose the private key; should the contributor refuse to disclose the private key, the enforceability of the pledge on the tokens would be undermined.

To sum up, in theory the contribution of cryptocurrencies into equity is not forbidden under the Italian law, however giving its questionable nature, it is still controversial how to guarantee the compliance with the mandatory requirements for the contribution in kind.

This case history and the order of the Court of Brescia give us the opportunity to provide the Italian picture on cryptocurrencies.

The Italian crypto-scenario is quite effervescent since the beginning of 2017; indeed, Italy was the first European country to define the virtual currency and the exchanger according to the new AML legislation. This is not strange considering that the anonymity surrounding cryptocurrencies, which varies from complete anonymity to pseudo-anonymity, prevents cryptocurrency transactions from being adequately monitored, allowing shady transactions to occur outside of the regulatory perimeter and criminal organisations to use cryptocurrencies to obtain easy access to «clean cash». Anonymity is also the major issue when it comes to tax evasion.

The AML Law

Legislative Decree no. 90 of May 25th 2017, which reformed legislative decree no. 231/2007, introduced definitions of exchanges and virtual currencies and provided a set of rules for the exchanges to comply with the anti-money laundering rules.

Virtual currency means “a digital representation of value that is neither issued by a central bank or a public authority, nor attached to a legally established fiat currency, which can be used as a means of exchange for the purchase of goods and services and transferred, stored and traded electronically.” Virtual currencies within the scope of AMLD5 and of the Italian AML Law are those that can be transferred, stored and traded electronically. Until now, other virtual currency schemes are not in scope, including virtual currencies used to attain goods and services without requiring exchange into legal tender or similar instruments, or the use of a custodian wallet provider.

Exchanges are defined as virtual service providers: “any natural or legal person providing professional services to third parties for the use, the exchange, the related storage of virtual currencies and for the conversion from or in currencies having legal tender [.]” Given this scope, they are subject to anti-money laundering regulations and, therefore, they have to obtain a sort of licence and be listed in a special register to operate in Italy. Considering this definition, it seems that a material number of key players are not included in AML law, for example miners and pure cryptocurrency exchanges that are not custodian wallet providers, hardware and software wallet providers, trading platforms and coin offerors. This choice of the legislator leaves blind spots in the fight against money laundering, terrorist financing and tax evasion. However, a decree of the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF) is under discussion, which seeks to extend the monitoring not only to exchanges but also to those subjects that accept cryptocurrencies for the sale of services and goods.

As said, apart from the AML Law, there is a lack of regulation which undermines the grade of protection of users and investors.

The protection of users/investors

One of the issues which prevents or undermines the grade of the protection is that crypto markets and crypto players can be located in jurisdictions that do not have effective money laundering and terrorist financing controls in place or do not have any regulation for their offering to the investors. Moreover, against the risk of default of the platform or the exchanges there is very little to do to protect investors especially at a cross-border level.

The protection of users/investors depends on several factors, the first one being the nature of the cryptocurrencies in question and the crypto-platforms (i.e. what they are, where they are based and whether they are compliant with the Italian law).

The nature of the cryptocurrencies has to be identified on a case-by-case basis. If qualified as securities (standard financial products which are transferable and generate profits), the prospectus rules should apply, this meaning that a prospectus is required under the Consolidated Financial Law (“Testo Unico Finanza” or “TUF”) to disclose significant financial risks to investors. If they are a hybrid made up of a means of payment and an investment component, the application of the TUF provisions is controversial.

From a criminal perspective, users/investors can be protected in case of fraud irrespective of the above factors. The general remedies under the criminal law apply.

The landmarks for investors’ protection are:

  • The AML Law defining the subjects obliged to declare their activities in the cryptocurrencies world (e. the custodian wallet providers and the virtual currency exchanges);
  • The TUF rules, inter alia, the prospectus regulation; and
  • The Consumers’ Code rules the mandatory provisions on the «form and pre-contractual information».

The common ground of civil actions is the disclosure of pre-contractual information to investors and the compliance of crypto-platforms and exchanges with the Italian law.

Civil actions might be brought against platforms:

  • Pursuant to Articles 50 and 67 of the Consumers’ Code, according to which any contract must provide consumers with mandatory «pre-contractual information».
  • Pursuant to Article 23 of the TUF, according to which any contract providing investment services must be in writing and “failure to comply with the prescribed form shall render the contract null and void”.

In 2017, the Court of Verona declared a contract null and void because of its breach of the mandatory provisions on the «form and pre-contractual information» and ordered the refund of the money to the consumer. From the consumers’ perspective, all the information about the nature, the risks and the features of any cryptocurrency must be provided in advance to individuals in a transparent manner. As a matter of fact, the Court of Verona has reasoned that any online agreement between parties, implying the exchange of real money for virtual money, represents a financial service or rather “a paid service.” The Court judged that the contract between the exchange and the Italian consumer was null and void, as the IT service firm breached the obligations set forth by Articles 50 on «distance contracts» and 67 of the Consumers’ Code, which provide as mandatory the «form and pre-contractual information» to be provided to consumers. Lastly, the Court ordered to return to the Italian plaintiff the amount invested in cryptocurrencies.

For the sake of completeness, the consumers’ protection has been achieved also by the Italian Antitrust Authority (i.e. the non-governmental organization focused on consumer protection), which stopped the operations of several affiliates of OneCoin, the digital currency investment scheme widely accused of fraud.

In 2017, Consob (National Authority for the Stock Exchange) banned the advertisement and then the offer of investment portfolios containing cryptocurrencies, made in breach of the prospectus regulation.

Pursuant to Article 101, Par. 4, Part c) of the TUF, Consob has prohibited the advertising – via the website www.coinspace1.com – of the public offer for ‘cryptocurrency extraction packages’ launched by Coinspace Ltd (Resolution no. 19968 of April 20th 2017). The offer had already been the subject of a precautionary 90-day suspension. Moreover, on December 6th, 2017, pursuant to resolution no. 20207, under Article 99, paragraph 1, letter d) of the TUF, Consob banned the offer to the Italian public of «investment portfolios» carried out without the required authorizations by Cryp Trade Capital through the website https://cryp.trade. A few months later, in March 2018, the website https://cryp.trade was subjected to precautionary seizure by the Criminal Court of Rome pursuant to Article 166 of the TUF (a criminal provision which punishes those who carry out financial services and activities without Consob’s authorization). The common ground of these resolutions issued by Consob is the absolute lack of the mandatory information and prospectus set forth by the TUF for entities providing financial services to Italian investors trading in cryptocurrencies and cryptocurrency-related products. Given the application of the TUF, pursuant to Article 23, any contracts for the provision of investment services must be in writing and “failure to comply with the prescribed form shall render the contract null and void”.

Both resolutions have remarked how the Italian versions of the websites were the evidence that those offers were targeted to the Italian market, therefore Consob has set the criteria to identify the territoriality of the crypto-platforms subject to the Italian law which is: “where the cryptocurrencies are intended to be offered to the public”.

To complete this overview, some highlights follow on ICOs and the tax regime of cryptocurrencies in Italy.

ICOs

Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) are not regulated by the Italian law. In ICOs the funding collected by a start-up could also be exchanged for an equity token (very similar to securities and then embodying an interest in the issuing start-up) or a utility token, which entitles the holder to exchange it for goods or services provided by the same start-up.

ICOs are very controversial (even if not yet officially banned by Consob), as they issue equity tokens that, due to their similarity to securities, can be offered to the public of investors only by entities duly authorized by the regulators, according to the TUF. As far as utility tokens, in theory their issuance might be allowed subject to a strict set of contractual rules, in order to protect investors as much as possible. However, the ICOs market has not taken off, yet.

The tax regime

For Italian tax purposes, the taxation of cryptocurrencies is not regulated by Law. Nonetheless, the Italian Revenue Agency issued a Ruling in May 2018 providing that gains on virtual currency for individuals trading outside a business activity are treated as gains arising from the disposal of traditional foreign currency. Consequently, gains relating to forward sale are always taxable, rather gains relating to forward sale are taxable only to the extent that, during the tax period, the average amount of the overall virtual currency maintained by the taxpayer exceeds the equivalent of EUR 51,645.69 for seven days in a row (the exchange rate to use is the one given by the website where the individual carried out the transaction). Any gain is therefore subject to 26% withholding tax. Additionally, the taxpayer must comply with the tax monitoring duties in the Individual Tax Return though he is not exempted from wealth tax (IVAFE), to the extent that virtual currency is not held through institutions or other authorized intermediaries by the Bank of Italy.

The same regulatory uncertainty put on the taxation of corporations trading in virtual currency. In a Ruling issued in September 2018, the authorities submitted that exchanges of bitcoins for legal currency constitute, for income tax purposes, a taxable event subject to Ires (24%) and Irap (3.9%).

For indirect tax purposes, the authorities confirmed that trading in bitcoins and other virtual currencies is similar to the activity of an intermediary negotiating in financial instruments, and, as a consequence, it is exempt from VAT under the Italian provision implementing article 135(1)(e) of the VAT Directive (2006/112). Therefore, when bitcoins are exchanged for real currencies, no VAT is due on the value of the bitcoins themselves.

The author of this post is Milena Prisco.

Agata Adamczyk

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