I mean that, today, despite the efforts made by many undertakings to construct “231” risks prevention model, the “response” of judges has not always been “favourable” and often they have a closed mindset in respect of their efforts.
In other words, systems of prevention, in whatever subject area and industry one wishes to “implant” them  – from workplace injuries to corporate crime, from environmental protection to offences against the public administration or from tax offences to competition law breaches – only make sense when they enjoy “credibility” and are considered a real instrument for mitigating risk by, amongst others, those charged with the task of verifying that they have been applied, being it the judiciary or an independent authority.
If that is not the case, the cost-benefit ratio of such measures soon reveals itself disadvantageous for the bodies regulated which, as a result, adopt a bureaucratic, formalistic and ineffective approach; this leads companies in the long run to abandon the positive “preventive tension” and to adopt an approach which  sees the sanction as business cost.
I believe therefore in giving greater space to forms of corporate self-regulation, above all where guided by indications originating with Supervisory Authorities.
But I must stress, above all, at a time when undertakings are losing profitability, the organisational models – where they are adopted and implemented in a serious manner – must ensure a reasonable degree of certainty that undertaking will not be held liable.
This is the approach which we must bravely follow.

This is the edited transcript of the “Competition law sanctions and the relations between administrative and criminal law” Conference held in Rome on the 24^th October, 2013.

Italian Version

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