A university professor, consultant for an important public body, turned to our firm for not having received payment of fees established by contract.

Having obtained an injunction for payment in favour of the client, the public body appealed against it before the Court of Rome objecting that:

1) decree 78/2010 had provided that “…starting from the year 2011 the annual expenditure for studies and consultancy assignments (…), cannot be higher than 20% of that incurred in 2009;
2) this law would have been imperative, so that the reduction therein provided would have been applied by law in consultancy contracts pursuant to art. 1339 of the Italian Civil Code.

The Court of Rome revoked the injunction, agreeing with the company’s argument.

The Appeal Court of Rome reformed this decision.

In particular, the Court of Appeal affirmed that the legislator did not in any way intend to reduce the amount of fees already agreed upon, having rather introduced a percentage limitation on the related payments, compared with the amount paid in 2009.

Consequently, the public body was ordered to pay the full amounts due to the consultant, although it was stipulated that the balance could only be settled via remittances that did not exceed the above annual spending limits.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)