Il principio di continuità aziendale nella redazione del bilancio: alcune riflessioni nell’attuale situazione di emergenza sanitaria

Going concern is a prerequisite for the drawing up of the annual financial statements required by the rules of the civil code, by national and international accounting standards. In the literature there has been an extensive discussion on the prospect of going concern and corporate doctrine believes it preferable that it should be concretely ascertained and not only affirmed. The purpose of this research is to highlight the differences in interpretation between civil law, OIC and IAS, also in light of the current COVID-19 pandemic. The current global economic context is going through a period of crisis for which it is difficult to predict the timing of recovery due to the uncertainties of the health emergency. Going concern is the prerequisite on the basis of which, in drawing up of the annual financial statements, the company is normally considered capable of continuing to carry out its business in the foreseeable future. If, on the other hand, future prospects do not allow the adoption of the going concern assumption, it is clear that the company balance sheet will assume values based on completely different considerations than the business continuity hypothesis. In particular, IAS 1 requires an enterprise to prepare financial statements with a view to going on with business, unless management intends to liquidate the entity or discontinue its business within twelve months. Even OIC 11 provides that in the drawing up of the annual financial statements, the company management will evaluate in perspective the ability of the company to continue to constitute a functioning economic complex intended for the production of income for a period of at least twelve months from the date of the financial statements. OIC 11 also provides that in the presence of significant uncertainties regarding this capacity, after the closing date of the financial statements, it must be drawn up in the perspective of going concern with an indication in the explanatory note of the information relating to risk factors. This work will also analyse the impact of the provisions set out in the Decree Law of 8 April 2020, no. 23 (so-called “Liquidity Decree”), which, also in order to neutralize the effects deriving from the current economic crisis, has allowed companies that before the crisis had a regular business continuity perspective to maintain this perspective also in the preparation of the relative financial statements to financial years 2019 and 2020.