Anti-corruption agency ANAC's new role one among many

(by Eva Bosco).
    (see related) (ANSA) - Rome, December 18 - The decision to task Italian anti-corruption agency ANAC with the arbitration of cases concerning investors left with worthless bonds in four Italian banks adds another responsibility to the many duties it already has. The bonds were issued by Banca Etruria, Carife, Carichieti and Banca delle Marche, recently rescued by a government decree.
    The idea of tasking the Italian Securities and Exchange Commission CONSOB was immediately rejected, in part due to complaints that the body should have conducted monitoring prior to the problems. ANAC is headed by Raffaele Cantone, who has had many problems to solve since his March 2014 appointment, from those concerning Expo Milano 2015 to the Jubilee. Supervision of public contracts and tenders is one of the main activities of the agency. Prior to Cantone's arrival and the law that revised its functions and powers, ANAC's main role was entrusted to another agency, the AVCP. The latter has since been eliminated and its functions and personnel have been transferred to ANAC, which has had to ensure that contracts handed out for such key events as the Expo and the Jubilee were done so in line with regulations. The increase in its powers has also led to the head of the body having the right to ask prefects to hand single works or contracts to an external authority when there are serious suspicions of irregularities or reports of crimes committed, ensuring in the meantime that the works continue. This is a ''lever'' that Cantone has employed several times, from MOSE project in the Venetian lagoon to some of the tenders concerning the Expo and contracted services for the Mineo asylum-seeker center. Transparency is also part of ANAC's remit, and it monitors public agencies' national anti-corruption plans and the reports that corruption prevention chiefs have to draw up every year. Now another sizeable sphere of activity will be that of arbitration that those holding bonds issued by the banks involved will be able to request in an attempt to get back their savings. ''I have learned with pleasure that the prime minister has selected ANAC as the agency to manage the arbitration. The arbitration chamber may be tasked with it, a body inside of ANAC but autonomous and independent, made up of legal experts and ones of very high professional standards,'' Cantone said. The arbitration chamber is led by Ferruccio Auletta, who teaches Civil Procedure Law in Naples, while the others in it are Ugo Draetta, Giovanni Fabio Licata, Alberto Massera and Luca Mezzetti. The arbitration cases that these experts have dealt with so far for ANAC have concerned public contracts. There are over 10,000 bondholders in the four banks, and while not all of them will meet the requirements for arbitration - investments entirely wiped out, poverty, inability to assess the risk involved - there are nonetheless expected to be thousands of cases.