Democrazia paritaria e governo delle imprese. Nuovi equilibri e disallineamenti della disciplina

The article analyses the rationale of the provisions that introduced in Italy the gender quotas (in favour of the under-represented gender, currently women) in the board of directors and supervisory board of listed and state-owned companies; it describes the regulatory framework on the subject and highlights how the rules on gender balance for listed companies were currently rewritten by Law no. 160 of 2019, which amended the original provisions introduced in the T.U.F. no. 58 of 1998 by Law no. 120 of 2011 (Legge Golfo-Mosca). The article therefore highlights the differences between the rules in force for listed companies and those in force for stateowned companies: for the latter, the rules consist of Article 3 of the Legge Golfo-Mosca and Article 4, paragraph 11 of the TUSPP, Legislative Decree 175 of 2016. It should be noted that for listed companies the quota reserved for the under-represented gender is 2/5 of the positions in the board and this percentage must be observed for 6 mandates (starting from the first renewal after January 1, 2020); while for state-owned companies the quota is 1/3 and the provision seems to have unlimited duration. The article also makes some proposals for regulatory reform to harmonise the respective provisions.