Corporate Governance in Italy: The Structural Conflict of Interests between Majority and Minority Shareholders

After a brief introduction aimed at summarizing the main steps of the economic devel-opment and the characteristics of the Italian economy, the chapter focuses on the corporate governance of large Italian companies. In particular, it presents (i) the main characteristics of the governance model of large companies; (ii) the pyramidal groups and the structural conflict of interests between majority and minority shareholders; (iii) the evolution of hard law and its impact on corporate governance; (iv) the introduction and the update of the code of best prac-tice and its impact on corporate governance; (v) the main challenges for Italian corporate gov-ernance.