Abstract

In the ambit of the recent reform of local public utility services of economic importance, Art. 23-bis of Law by Decree No. 135 of 25 September 2009 has authorised the Government to adopt one or more regulations abolishing laws, among the purposes of which is to provide for a clear distinction between the functions of regulation and the functions of management of local public utility services, including through the revision of the regulations on incompatibility. In the implementation of said authorisation, Decree by the President of the Republic No. 168 of 7 September 2010 was enacted. Art. 8 of the decree regards precisely the distinction between regulatory and managerial functions. The normative provisions pursue this objective by specifying incompatibility and with a set of prohibitions aimed at those who work in various capacities in the award of contracts, regulation, direction and control, as well as with regard to family members of the same. Other no less important aspects of the relation between regulators and the regulated instead are beyond the scope of Art. 8. The exact delimitation of this new system of incompatibility, where the reasons of the ethics of the marketplace are joined with those of the ethics of politics and of administration, is by no means easy, as the author sets out to demonstrate.