By judgment of 10.14.2014 n. 42874, the Court of Cassation, Criminal Division, confirmed that it is illegal an indication of “made in Italy” for products that do not originate in this country.
The case refers to a packaging of dried mushrooms that bore the words “Italian products” and reproduced on the sidelines of the package, the Italian flag, but without indicate the origin of the raw material enveloped in national territory. Technical examination carried out during the procedure had emerged that the mushrooms were from non-EU countries and that there had been no substantial transformation in the Italian territory. In particular, the Court has determined that it can not be regarded as an activity of “transformation” the simpy enveloping of materials from other countries.
The Court therefore ruled that paragraph 49-bis of art. 4 of Law n. 350 of 2003 «should be interpreted as meaning that currently constitute criminal offenses irrelevant (and incorporating only an administrative offense) not false, but only the “distorting reality ” that might generate uncertainty induced by the lack of precise and clear origin or foreign origin or at least sufficient to avoid any misunderstanding of the consumer on the actual origin of the product.»
In the present case the fact that the product was specifically the Italian flag and the words “Italian product,” while the mushrooms actually came from abroad, was considered a “false” indication of origin and therefore a offense pursuant to art. 515 of the Italian Criminal Law.