On 18 March 2023, Legislative Decree No. 25of 17 March 2023 on the issuance and circulation of certain financial instruments in digital form and the simplification of FinTech experimentation (the Decree) entered into force. It implements Regulation (EU) No. 2022/858 of the European Parliament and the Council of 30 May 2022 on a pilot regime for market infrastructures based on distributed ledger technology and amends Regulations (EU) No. 600/2014 and (EU) No. 909/2014 and Directive 2014/65/EU (the Regulation). The purpose of the Regulation is to make EU financial services legislation suitable for the digital age, also through the uptaking of distributed ledger technology (the DLT). DLT is an information repository that keeps records of transactions relating to digital financial instruments and that is shared across, and synchronised between, a set of network nodes. Article 2 of the Decree provides that the provisions therein shall apply, among other financial instruments categories, to shares and bonds issued by joint stock companies and to debt instruments issued by limited liability companies. According to Article 3 of the Decree, the issuing and transmission of digital financial instruments is to be executed on a distributed ledger held by a formally responsible subject.
Originally published by April, 2023
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