# Hotel managers and embezzlement: the first ruling by the Supreme Court following authentic interpretation by lawmakers.
With decision no. 9213 of 15 February 2022, the 6th Division of the Supreme Court acquitted a hotel manager of the charge of #embezzlement pursuant to art. 314 of the penal code after failing to pay room occupancy taxes.
This is the first Supreme Court ruling issued after the introduction of art. 5-quinquies of legislative decree no. 146/2021, whereby “paragraph 1-ter of article 4 of legislative decree March 14, 2011, no. 23, is also applicable to cases occurred before 19 May 2020.”
Therefore, the application of this interpretation resolved the jurisprudential and doctrinal conflict arising from the retroactive reach of the reform introduced by the “Decreto Rilancio” (Stimulus Package per legislative decree no. 34/2020), which, charged hotel managers with the task of paying the occupancy tax jointly and severally with the customers, rather than designating them as money handlers. In doing so, it has made their qualification as public service officer redundant, which was necessary in order to establish the occurrence of embezzlement in the event of a failure to pay room occupancy taxes.
What changes after this ruling then?
According to the lawyer Luigi Tassinari, this puts an end to the unreasonably unequal treatment that had arisen following the previous judgments by the Supreme Court, as the authentic interpretation provided by lawmakers also led to the decriminalization of the offence of omitted payment of any room occupancy taxes introduced by hotel managers before the entry into force of the so-called “Decreto Rilancio” (Stimulus Package).
#criminal law #roffencesagainstthepublicadministration #hotel managers and embezzlement