Law converting the law-decree 25/2023 on the tokenization of financial instruments published in the Italian Official Journal.

The Law converting the law-decree 25/2023 has been published in the Italian Official Gazette No. 112/2023. The rules relates to 'Urgent provisions on the issuance and circulation of certain financial instruments in digital form and the simplification of FinTech experimentation.

The regulated matters regards:

• issuance and transfer of digital financial instruments;
• requirements for registers for digital circulation, where the aforementioned transactions are to be entered;
• effects of such entries on company books;
• obligations of the registrar;
• replacement of the digital financial instrument;
• unwritten digital financial instruments, the issuance of which is permitted only on registers kept by the persons in charge registered in the specific list;
• deletion and suspension from the said list and the obligations of the registry manager;
• reporting obligations to the authorities;
• liability regime;
• supervision of the matter, exercised by Consob and the Bank of Italy;
• sanctions, ranging from EUR 5,000 to EUR 5 million, for managers and issuers who violate the duties and obligations covered by the measure.

Anti-money laundering regulation is included into art. 26-bis, establishing that those responsible for digital circulation registers fall into the category of other non-financial operators within the meaning of Article 3(5) of Legislative Decree No. 231/2007.

The principles and criteria relating to the formation and maintenance of the list of the persons in charge of the registers for digital circulation will be the subject of a specific regulation adopted by Consob within 60 days from the date of entry into force of the Law.

Consob and the Bank of Italy are the competent authorities under Regulation (EU) 2022/858.

(Source: SEAC All-In Giuridica - Ownership of the contents: Gruppo SEAC)