History
The Italian Online Commodities Exchange originates from the experience of Meteora S.p.A.
Meteora S.p.A., a company of the Chambers of Commerce, was set up on January 26th 2000 with the aim of modernising the current Commodity Exchanges system (disciplined by law no. 272 of March 20th 1913 and Royal Decree no. 1068 of August 4th 1913) through the management of an online market for agricultural, agri-food and fish products.
For this purpose, Meteora S.p.A. has been legitimized by the following legislative process:
- decree of the Ministry for Industry, Commerce and Craft of December 20th 2000, which authorised the dealing of goods provided by Law 272/1913 also via electronic or online tools for an initial test period of not more than 12 months;
- articles 7 and 8 of Law no. 57 of March 5th 2001, which delegated the government to issue one or more law decrees containing standards for orientation and modernisation of the agriculture and fishing sectors;
- article 30 of law decree no. 228 of May 18th 2001, legally officialised the experimental period for online negotiations, provided the adoption by the Ministry of Agricultural and Forestry Policies of a regulation for the online functioning of Italian commodities exchanges, and ordered the publication of the results in terms of prices and quantities of goods and commodities;
- the decree of the Ministry for Productive Activities, March 9th 2002 (published in the Official Gazetta of April 2nd 2002) officially launched the period of experimentation for online dealing, lasting 12 months, and recognised Meteora S.p.A. as manager of the online platform and the services connected thereto.
After some years of experimentation, and following the positive market results obtained, the Ministry for Agriculture and Forestry Policies issued a decree on April 6th 2006, no. 174, officially setting up the BMTI (Borsa Merci Telematica Italiana - the Italian Online Commodities Exchange), giving to Borsa Merci Telematica Italiana S.c.p.A. (Italian Online Commodities Exchange S.c.p.A.) the function of management company of the online trading platform.
Decree no. 174 of April 6th 2006 also set up the National Deputation, the body with supervision and general direction of the Italian Online Commodities Exchange.
Documents
M.D. 6th April 2006, n.174