Former Ilva, Court of Appeal upholds hot-end shutdown: Supreme Court to rule October 20

On August 29 we reported how decree-law 154/2026 had shortened the duration of sureties on internal landfills without however addressing the issue of the industrial structure, leaving the October 28 deadline for shutting down the hot end unchanged (we wrote about it here). On September 11, 2026 that deadline received judicial confirmation: the Milan Civil Court of Appeal rejected the request for a stay filed by Ilva and Acciaierie d’Italia under extraordinary administration, according to ANSA. In its reasoning, the Court wrote that “the right to health prevails over the business.”

The matter is not settled here. Five days later, the Court of Cassation scheduled the discussion of the extraordinary appeals against the Milan ruling, setting the date for the public hearing of October 20, 2026 before the Civil United Sections, as reported again by ANSA. Eight days remain between the hearing and the October 28 deadline: a narrow margin for any possible intervention by the Supreme Court before the plants are shut down.

On the employment front, the affair has already had concrete effects. On September 4 dismissal letters were sent to 2,500 former Ilva workers, while around 3,000 employees are already on redundancy fund schemes, according to documentation from TarantoToday. The figures concern the supply chain linked to the plant, not the group’s entire workforce.

On the government front, the decree-law expected at the Council of Ministers has been postponed pending the Court of Appeal’s ruling on the request to extend the hot-end shutdown, as confirmed by PeaceLink. The Minister of Enterprises and Made in Italy, Adolfo Urso, explained that the measure is “already drafted, it will be resubmitted as soon as we have the new ruling from the Court of Appeal.”

With the stay rejected, the judicial and industrial calendars now run in parallel: the Supreme Court will decide on October 20, eight days before the deadline set for shutting down the hot end, while the text of the decree expected at Palazzo Chigi remains on hold pending that same decision.