Business Crisis Code: what changes for those who sell on credit and for those who buy

In short: the Business Crisis and Insolvency Code (Legislative Decree 14/2019, CCII) obliges the entrepreneur to detect the crisis in time (art. 3 CCII, art. 2086 of the Civil Code) and provides tools to get out of it: negotiated settlement, agreements, composition with creditors (concordato), compulsory liquidation (liquidazione giudiziale). For you, as someone who sells on credit, one thing matters: each tool changes what you can ask of the debtor and what you see in the Registro Imprese. Below is the map, tool by tool, with what you need to do.

What is the Crisis Code and why does it also concern those who are not in crisis?

It is the law that governs the crisis and insolvency of companies. It does not concern only those in difficulty: it imposes organisational duties on every entrepreneur and gives creditors, you included, different positions depending on the tool chosen by the debtor.

For a supplier, the practical questions are three. Must my client notice in time that it is going badly? What happens to my receivables if it chooses one tool rather than another? Where do I see that it has happened? The sections that follow answer in this order. For the extreme case, the basic guide is how to know whether a company has gone bankrupt.

What are adequate organisational structures and the duty to detect the crisis?

Article 3 of the Code, entitled "Adequacy of measures and structures for the timely detection of the business crisis", states two things. The individual entrepreneur must adopt measures suitable for detecting the crisis in good time and intervene without delay. The corporate entrepreneur must set up adequate organisational, administrative and accounting structures, referring to article 2086 of the Civil Code.

The structures must make it possible, among other things, to detect asset or economic-financial imbalances, to verify the sustainability of debts and business continuity for at least the following twelve months, and to identify the signals in para. 4. These signals, in the text in force since 28 September 2024 (after the corrective decree Legislative Decree 136/2024), are four:

• wage debts overdue by at least 30 days, amounting to more than half of the total monthly wages;
• supplier debts overdue by at least 90 days, of an amount higher than that of debts not yet due;
• exposures to banks and financial intermediaries overdue for more than 60 days (or exceeding the credit limit by at least 60 days), if they amount in total to at least 5% of total exposures;
• one or more of the exposures to the qualified public creditors referred to in article 25-novies, para. 1.

The second signal concerns you directly: you, the supplier, are the one the client has not paid for 90 days. Which signals you can read from the outside and which you cannot is explained in business crisis indicators: the warning signals on a client or supplier.

Who reports the crisis: INPS, Agenzia delle Entrate, Riscossione, INAIL?

Article 25-novies provides that INPS, INAIL, Agenzia delle entrate and Agenzia delle entrate-Riscossione notify the situation to the entrepreneur and, if present, to the chair of the board of statutory auditors, by certified email (PEC) or, failing that, by registered letter with return receipt. The notice invites the entrepreneur to file, if the requirements are met, the application for a negotiated settlement.

The thresholds indicated in the text reported by Brocardi (accessed today) are:

A practical consequence: these notices go to the debtor, not to you. You do not see them in the company extract. They are useful to you as a key to reading the situation: a client that has received a notice knows it is in difficulty, even if it keeps placing orders with you.

What tools does the debtor have and where do you see them in the Registro Imprese?

The Registro Imprese reports the Code's procedures in the block "Dissolution, insolvency procedures, cancellation" of the company extract, section "Crisis Code, insolvency procedures and other proceedings": type of procedure, opening and closing dates, and the name of the receiver, liquidator or notary. To demonstrate the absence of ongoing procedures, the "insolvency procedures" block is requested through Telemaco. The table summarises, tool by tool, what you see and what you do.

One limitation to keep in mind: a procedure opened a few days ago may not yet be visible. Check the update date of the data you consult.

What is the negotiated settlement and what does it change for you?

It is a confidential process in which an independent expert helps the entrepreneur negotiate with creditors. By law (art. 17), the application is filed through the national electronic platform; the expert accepts within two working days, the mandate lasts 180 days from acceptance and can continue for no more than another 180 days if the required conditions are met. The parties are bound by confidentiality regarding the entrepreneur's situation and ongoing initiatives (art. 16, para. 6).

If the entrepreneur requests the protective measures, from the publication the creditors concerned may not acquire non-agreed security interests nor start or continue enforcement and precautionary actions over the entrepreneur's assets or business property (art. 18, para. 3). Payments are not barred. Creditors may not unilaterally refuse performance of pending contracts, terminate them or bring forward their expiry solely for unpaid pre-existing receivables; from the publication until the measures are confirmed, they may instead suspend performance (art. 18, para. 5). The measures last from 30 to 120 days in the first instance, with a total maximum of 240 days (art. 19). All the operational management is covered in the dedicated guide.

And if the client moves to composition with creditors or compulsory liquidation?

Your role changes: from a supplier that negotiates you become a creditor of a procedure. In the composition with creditors (concordato preventivo) the proposal is submitted to the creditors and new supplies should be handled with caution (guide: client in composition with creditors). In compulsory liquidation the entrepreneur loses the availability of its assets and a receiver intervenes: you file the claim for admission to the liabilities (ammissione al passivo) and check, with your lawyer, whether the payments collected in the preceding months are at risk.

If you do not have a client in crisis yet but want to know how often it happens, the bankruptcy and liquidation observatory collects data on opened proceedings.

How do you organise yourself as a supplier, in practice?

1. Before the order: check protests and procedures with a quick check and, for significant credit lines, with a complete report.
2. During the relationship: keep overdue amounts under control; your receivable overdue for 90 days is already a signal, provided by article 3, for the debtor.
3. If a client changes behaviour (new delays, requests for an instalment plan): reread the signals in signs of a client's insolvency before non-payment.
4. If something appears in the Registro Imprese: go to the row of the table above and follow the sequence indicated.
5. If your exposure is significant: consult a lawyer or your accountant before reaching an agreement with the debtor.

To keep more clients under monitoring over time, Sentinella costs 39€ per month for 5 companies.

For accountants. If your clients sell on credit or have clients in difficulty, you can check the counterparties with Veryfy without a subscription and without registration: you pay for the single check, for example the Verification report at 19€ before recommending a credit line or an instalment plan, or the Negative records check at 5.90€ when you only need a quick verification of protests and procedures.

Sources

• Brocardi.it, Business Crisis Code, art. 3 (accessed 11/11/2026)
• MioLegale, art. 3 CCII, text in force since 28 September 2024 (accessed 11/11/2026)
• Brocardi.it, Business Crisis Code, art. 25-novies (accessed 11/11/2026)
• Brocardi.it, Business Crisis Code, art. 17 (accessed 11/11/2026)
• Brocardi.it, Business Crisis Code, art. 18 (accessed 11/11/2026)
• Brocardi.it, Business Crisis Code, art. 19 (accessed 11/11/2026)
• Brocardi.it, Business Crisis Code, art. 23 (accessed 11/11/2026)
• Registro Imprese, Business Crisis Code and insolvency procedures (accessed 11/11/2026)

For the law, the official text in the Gazzetta Ufficiale prevails: the text of the Code was consulted on the Brocardi.it website, which is not an official source. Veryfy is not affiliated with Brocardi.it or MioLegale.