One of the key reasons Italy is such a discouraging place for businesses to operate is that its legal system operates at a glacial pace.
In Italy it takes 1,185 days to enforce a contract, which is more than twice as long as it takes in the average high-income country, as measured by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Here's how bad Italy's courts are, from a business perspective.IMF
"The inefficiency of Italy's judicial system may be an important factor behind its poor growth performance," the International Monetary Fund said in a statement. "Growth is projected to average 0.7 percent during 2013-18 and in the absence of deeper strutural reforms potential growth is estimated at around 1/2 percent. A number of factors unrelated to the judicial system are relevant to understand the dynamics of Italian growth, but an increasing body of literature suggests that a weak judicial system has a more direct negative impact on growth than had hitherto been assumed."
Similar statistics from the 2013 EU Justice Scoreboard show that relative to its European peers, Italy scores poorly on the time needed to resolve administrative, civil and commercial cases.
The OECD average to complete a civil case up to the Supreme Court level is 788 days, while it is almost eight years in Italy.
