Former Ilva, Court of Appeal reserves decision on new stay request

The Court of Appeal of Milan has reserved its decision on the second request for a stay of the shutdown of the hot area of former Ilva, filed by Ilva and Acciaierie d’Italia after the rejection of the first request, which we reported on September 17. The chamber hearing was held on September 30 before the panel chaired by Giuseppe Ondei.

Two days earlier, on September 28, the Milan Public Prosecutor’s Office had requested that the new petition be declared inadmissible or in any case rejected. Deputy Public Prosecutor Angelo Renna argued that the current situation “excludes, rather than justifies, the need for a new precautionary measure.”

At the end of the hearing the panel did not release its reserved decision. Legal sources close to the proceedings report that “timing might not be short,” opening a scenario of uncertainty over the timing of the decision just as two crucial deadlines approach: the Court of Cassation’s United Sections hearing on the appeals, set for October 20, and the October 28 deadline for shutting down the hot area established by the same Court of Appeal in the ruling we reported on in September.

The judicial calendar is thus becoming tighter: if the Court of Appeal were to decide close to October 20, the ruling could come just days, if not hours, before the Cassation hearing on the extraordinary appeal already filed by Ilva and Acciaierie d’Italia. With the reservation of September 30, the possibility therefore remains open, twenty days before the October 28 deadline, that the three levels of judgment — the merits ruling, the new precautionary petition and the appeal to the Cassation — will overlap without a definitive ruling before the shutdown scheduled for the end of the month.

On the industrial front, the situation remains as described in the newspaper’s previous pieces: the shutdown concerns the hot area of the Taranto plant, and the government decree remains suspended. No new element, at the moment, changes this picture: the Court of Appeal’s decision remains the only pending act, and its timing — described by the same legal sources as not short — is today the factor conditioning every subsequent deadline.