Pagamento transattivo di somme per il risarcimento di illeciti civili e inerenza del relativo costo dell'attività d'impresa (Nota a ordinanza Corte suprema di Cassazione civile sezione V 8 giugno 2021, n. 15932)

With the two decisions under examination, the Supreme Court evaluated, for the first time in a specific way, the question of the inherence and of the consequent deductibility from the business income of the costs deriving from the conclusion of a settlement agreement resulting from the notification of a civil tort, reaching unreasonably antithetical exegetical solutions. Indeed, if assessed both from the general perspective of the commonly accepted notion of inherence, and in the one, only partially acceptable, outlined by the same jurisprudence of the Supreme Court, the costs and expenses incurred by entrepreneurs for compensation for damages from conduct "contra legem" but held in the exercise of their business, and therefore falling within the business risk, should be considered deductible. In fact, they arise from legal events that occur and evolve in the dynamic context of the business activity, with the consequence that the related disbursements do not lose the functional connection with it and therefore do not break the inherence link.