Abstract

Despite EU recommendations to remove anti-competitive rules in professional services, national jurisditions impose several restrictions to the freedom of professionals. In this way, many state statutes impose restrictions to the organizational form or business structure of the professions, also providing that incorporation might be prohibited or made conditional on the requirement of unlimited liability of the professionals. The legal regime governing in Italy the liability of professionals and their firms for malpractice is different for lawyers (decree 96/2001 imposes only partnerhip form where partners are jointly and several liable to their clients) and other professions (law 183/2011 allows limited liability entities as professional corporations). Significantly, the 2012 reform of legal professions provides for the liability of lawyers who are stockholders in a professional legal corporation to be the same as if they were practicing as partners. The purpose of this article is to outline the rules governing the imposition of liability to professionals and their firms, partnerships or corporations, in order to investigate whether the provisions that ensure mandatory personal liability of professional firms members are justified by a legitimate public interest objective or could be considered as restriction beyond this scope.