The Trust is a legal institution of Anglo-Saxon origin, derived from common law systems, useful for regulating a variety of legal relationships of a patrimonial nature, both in terms of separation, segregation, management, and planning of assets, and in a succession perspective (i.e. generational transfer of wealth).

A Trust refers to the legal relationships established by a person, the Settlor — by means of an inter vivos or testamentary act — arising from the total or partial transfer of their assets under the control of another party, the Trustee, who manages them as if they were the rightful owner, in the interest of a Beneficiary or for a specific purpose, according to the Settlor’s wishes as set out in the trust deed.

These assets — which can be of any kind (real estate, registered and unregistered movable property, company shares, sums of money, credits, securities, etc.) — are removed from the Settlor’s personal estate and form the so-called trust fund, which constitutes a distinct, segregated, and separate pool of assets, both from the personal assets of the Settlor and those of the Trustee. Although the Trustee becomes the legal and full owner, they may never mix them with their own assets, as the exercise of ownership rights over such assets is limited to achieving the purposes indicated by the Settlor in the trust deed, which the Trustee carries out. In this way, the trust fund cannot be attacked by the personal creditors of the Settlor, the Trustee, or the Beneficiaries.

Since it is not an institution of Italian law and there is no specific Italian legislation for it, the Trust was recognized in the Italian legal system through the ratification of the Hague Convention of 1 July 1985 on the “Law Applicable to Trusts and on their Recognition” by Law No. 364 of 16 October 1989, which came into force in Italy on 1 January 1992. This led to the establishment in Italy of so-called “internal Trusts”, meaning Trusts in which the Settlor, Beneficiaries, Trustee, and the assets transferred into the Trust are all Italian, while the governing law — which cannot be Italian — must be chosen from one of the many foreign countries that do have specific trust legislation.