Abstract

The term «direct claim» commonly refers to a number of cases in which a creditor has a cause of action against a defendant other than their original debtor allowing them to recover – in whole or in part – their initial claim. Despite the relatively ancient origins of this mechanism and its increasingly widespread use by the italian legislator, its functioning remains uncertain, if not unknown altogether.Considering the current status of scholarly reflections thereupon, which are typically limited to sector-specific applications of direct claims, this paper aims to investigate direct claims as an independent phenomenon – from a functional, structural as well as conceptual standpoint – whose boundaries need to be analysed and defined.