La contabilizzazione degli strumenti finanziari derivati nelle imprese di tipo non-financial alla luce del Decreto Legislativo 139/2015 e del principio contabile OIC 32

The Legislative Decree no. 139 in August 2015 enables the recognition of derivatives in the financial statements of Italian entities adopting Italian Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (ITA GAAP). While in the financial statements for previous years derivatives were only disclosed in notes, according to new established rules, they are now measured at fair value. A non-financial company can use derivatives for speculative purposes or for hedging risks. This poses interesting challenges related to the rationale inside the derivatives detention. Following Art. 2426 of Italian Civil Code, when a company holds derivatives for a cash flow hedge, changes (both positive and negative) in derivatives fair value must be recognized in a proper equity reserve. Indeed, if the derivative is held for speculative purposes, or even if it is not possible to prove its hedging vocation, the change directly affects the income statement. The recognition of the derivative to hedge the exposure to variability in cash flow or changes in fair value must comply with the set of characteristics established by the new Italian Accounting Standard OIC 32, which has been issued in 2016 and recently updated in December 2017 in the efforts to harmonize national and international accounting standards for derivatives. Generally, small and medium-sized enterprises have inadequate resources in determining the value of derivatives that are traded over-the-counter (OTC). This is one of the reasons why many non-financial companies continue to refrain from trading some derivative financial instruments such as options in the OTC market. In fact, measuring the fair value of OTC options requires both specific knowledge of financial and statistical analysis methods and rather expensive software. However, bearing in mind the growing competitiveness of markets where in companies operate today and the new disclosure obligations established by current legislation, all Italian non-financial companies will need to develop or improve their risk management practices. Only in this way they will be able to price complex derivatives (such as OTC options) and measure the efficiency in hedging strategies using those instruments.