Workers’ Buyout (WBO): From Mafia to a New Legal-Economic Business

There is such a thing as a legal concept straddling employment law, constitutional law and corporate law, that is to say the workers’ buy-out. The latter is revamped and rekindled in this paper in connection with one of the most caliginous and dark phenomena, the Mafia, particularly the one which has blossomed in its historical cradle, Italy. In this legal system, a piece of legislation of the last decade empowers the prosecutor, e.g., the state to seize on the assets of a Mafia-tainted business. However, in the current version of this Italian statute, the business, once seized, seems to be left to an uncertain future, particularly as far as the employees’ work relationship is concerned. Based on such a background, the paper discusses and analyses, de lege ferenda, a prospective amendment to the current legislation in a way that, thanks to the entrenched tool of the workers’ buyout, employees may step into the shoes of the confiscated business. Via this route, not only would their work be preserved, but also, they would be in charge of managing the business activity concerned. In this possible future amended statute, some business models coming from across the Channel, such as the ‘John Lewis model’, may represent an exciting intellectual spark for comparative analysis in law.