On March 4, 2020, the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation established new procedures to be used beginning April 20, 2020 by the National Authority UAMA (Unit for the Authorization of Armaments Materials) to deliver authorizations issued pursuant to Legislative Decree No. 221 of December 15, 2017.
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As of January 1, 2020, the Unit for the Authorization of Military Goods (“National Authority – UAMA”) was reorganized, and it became responsible, among other things, for issuing specific authorizations pursuant to Legislative Decree No. 221 of December 15, 2017 (“Legislative Decree”). On March 4, 2020, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation issued a circular establishing the new digital communication method to be followed by UAMA for issuing such authorizations.[1]
The Legislative Decree implements the relevant European legislation regarding the sector and establishes the authorizations necessary to carry out specific activities concerning dual-use items, goods subject to EU ban on trade in instruments of torture, and items included on special lists as a result of restrictive EU measures. Thus, the National Authority–UAMA acquired the status of an authority responsible for issuing authorizations for: (i) the export, transfer, commercial brokering, technical assistance, and transit of dual-use items; (ii) trade in goods subject to the antitorture Regulation; and (iii) direct and indirect trade in items listed under EU restrictive measures.
Accordingly, as of April 20, 2020, the National Authority–UAMA started forwarding said authorizations to the relevant offices of the Customs Agency using certified electronic e-mails containing the authorization measures signed by the director and recorded in a file stored at the Dual-use Materials Division. Such reform was needed to simplify the final stage of the administrative authorization procedure. Indeed, before this simplification was put into practice, such authorizations were delivered by hand to personnel involved at the requesting companies or — as an alternative — by courier or registered mail. Exporting companies then submitted the authorization measures to the customs offices where the goods subject to authorization were to pass.
[1] Legislative Decree No. 221 of December 15, 2017, adopted on the basis of the delegation to the government cited in Article 7 of Law No. 170 of August 12, 2016, for the adaptation of national legislation to the provisions of European legislation for the purposes of reorganizing and simplifying procedures for the authorization of exports of dual-use items and technologies and the application of sanctions in the area of trade embargoes, as well as for all types of export transactions of proliferating materials, published in Italian Official Gazette No. 13 of January 17, 2018.
