Diritto Pubblico Comparato ed Europeo

Sommario

1. Definizione dell’istituto e caratteristiche generali. – 2. Origine e tradizione della finanza di progetto statunitense. – 3. Quadro normativo di riferimento. – 4. Tecniche di project financing: parti coinvolte, strutture finanziarie, modalità di partenariato pubblico-privato. – 5. Principali problemi interpretativi e applicativi. Alcuni case study.

Abstrac

This paper investigates the use of project financing in the United States of America, and compares it with the model introduced in Italy with the Merloni Law in 1994. First of all the paper underlines the different level of cooperation between the public and private sector that characterizes the Italian and US experiences. In fact, while in Italy project financing has been specifically introduced in order to involve the private sector in public infrastructre projects, in the US it has been adopted as an instrument aimed at increasing the efficiency of public infrastructures and services traditionally managed by the private sector. In addition, the paper points out that US law does not define a unique model: in this context, project financing means any kind of contracts aimed at regulating the relationship of the parts involved inthe financing of a project. Thus, one of its most important characteristics is the heterogeneity and flexibility of instruments that can be identified within this definition. Finally, since there is no federal statute on this topic, the paper reviews some State level legislation regulating the Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) scheme, that is the typology of project financing closest to the Italianmodel.