Il project financing tra inquadramento teorico e rinegoziazione delle sopravvenienze

The paper aims to provide a legal analysis of project finance, examining profiles and civil problems arising from the legal instrument, also through comparative insights. In particular, the paper develops in three directions: (i) analysis of the overall phenomenon, in public contracts area as well as in the private contracts context; (ii) examination of the aforesaid theoretical framework as a whole; (iii) the existence of a legal obligation to renegotiate between the parties themselves. As regards the first issue after a brief reconstruction of the economic phenomenon and the analysis of the essential features of the project finance, the unity of the purpose of the contract was emphasized, arguing that its application in public or private contexts does not alter the nature of the contract itself that remains, therefore, the same. And in fact, the rules contained in the Italian Public Contract Code concerning the project financing cannot be considered neither as a discipline of the legal instrument nor as the discipline of the legal relations existing between the parties; rather the abovementioned rules should be considered as an adaptation of the funding model to the specific needs of the public sector. Therefore, the validity of a general unique scheme is not altered: it is therefore characterized by the presence of specific elements in both areas, public and private: this being true, the legal issues raised by the legal instruments of private and public project finance have been jointly dealt with. As for the second issue, after investigated the relationships existing among the stakeholders of the project finance, the thesis sustained is that the most convincing qualification of the legal tool supporting the economic operation should described as a unique multilateral contract with common purpose, thus rejecting the more common qualification as ‘connected contract’. Once the distinction between ‘connected contracts’ and a unique multilateral contract with common purpose has been imputed to the existence of a unitary consideration, it has been argued that in the project finance the unitary consideration consists in splitting the risk of the project among the involved parties to the contract. This thesis seems confirmed by the special operational guarantees asset, as well as by the conditioning mechanism by which the loan agreement is subject to the existence of construction building, management, supply and sales contracts, while in turn, the abovementioned contracts are subject to the condition precedent consisting in the fulfillment of the loan contract. More precisely: evidence of the common purpose is given by the existence of a common interest of all the stakeholders of the economic operation. A first commonality can be perceived among SPV and lenders, through a parallelism with the Italian agriculture associative agreements and their corresponding institutions in Islamic finance. A second commonality can be highlighted among SPV and the other “satellite” participants, thus assuming a compatibility between exchange contracts and associated contracts, as noted by some academics in the area of network contracts. Consequently, art. 1420 of the Italian civil code would apply, thus avoiding the implications of the principle simul stabunt simul cadent applied to ‘connected contracts’. In other words: the interest of the parties to the fulfillment of the project is, in fact, confirmed by the systematic presence of a specific contractual clause, defined as “terms of survival of the project”. In relation to the third and final point, project finance proves to be an elective ground for renegotiation as appropriate remedy. The legal obligation - now expressly regulated in the German, Dutch and Greek Civil Code as well as implicitly subsisting in the U.S. system - proves to be accepted in the Italian legal system, where it is based on the principle of good faith in the performance of the contract, as interpreted in the light of solidarity constitutional values ?? protected by art. 2 of the Italian Constitution. Additionally, the unified framework of project finance would be consistent with the need to overcome the logic of relativity of contractual fragments, as demonstrated both by the English academic debate now reflecting on the role of sanctity of contract and on the concept of connected contracts, and by the French experience in the area of contractual ‘indivisibilté’. Not every relationship established between the parties is contractual stricto sensu, since there are bilateral agreements: nevertheless, the close “organisational relation” generated leads to reflect on the opportunity to allow an extension of limitation or exclusion liability objections also between the parties of the global operation not linked themselves by a contract and to conclude that there is a responsibility among them that exceed the forms of non-contractual liability. The observations proposed hereabove would lead to a reinterpretation of the borderline between the two legal instruments, ‘connected contracts’ and multilateral contracts, thus leading to the conclusion that there is a legal obligation to renegotiate in both contractual schemes, as both can be defined as relational contracts

Search for gravitational-lensing signatures in the full third observing run of the LIGO-Virgo network

Gravitational lensing by massive objects along the line of sight to the source causes distortions of gravitational wave-signals; such distortions may reveal information about fundamental physics, cosmology and astrophysics. In this work, we have extended the search for lensing signatures to all binary black hole events from the third observing run of the LIGO--Virgo network. We search for repeated signals from strong lensing by 1) performing targeted searches for subthreshold signals, 2) calculating the degree of overlap amongst the intrinsic parameters and sky location of pairs of signals, 3) comparing the similarities of the spectrograms amongst pairs of signals, and 4) performing dual-signal Bayesian analysis that takes into account selection effects and astrophysical knowledge. We also search for distortions to the gravitational waveform caused by 1) frequency-independent phase shifts in strongly lensed images, and 2) frequency-dependent modulation of the amplitude and phase due to point masses. None of these searches yields significant evidence for lensing. Finally, we use the non-detection of gravitational-wave lensing to constrain the lensing rate based on the latest merger-rate estimates and the fraction of dark matter composed of compact objects

Search for eccentric black hole coalescences during the third observing run of LIGO and Virgo

Despite the growing number of confident binary black hole coalescences observed through gravitational waves so far, the astrophysical origin of these binaries remains uncertain. Orbital eccentricity is one of the clearest tracers of binary formation channels. Identifying binary eccentricity, however, remains challenging due to the limited availability of gravitational waveforms that include effects of eccentricity. Here, we present observational results for a waveform-independent search sensitive to eccentric black hole coalescences, covering the third observing run (O3) of the LIGO and Virgo detectors. We identified no new high-significance candidates beyond those that were already identified with searches focusing on quasi-circular binaries. We determine the sensitivity of our search to high-mass (total mass M>70 M⊙) binaries covering eccentricities up to 0.3 at 15 Hz orbital frequency, and use this to compare model predictions to search results. Assuming all detections are indeed quasi-circular, for our fiducial population model, we place an upper limit for the merger rate density of high-mass binaries with eccentricities 0<e≤0.3 at 0.33 Gpc−3 yr−1 at 90\% confidence level

Ultralight vector dark matter search using data from the KAGRA O3GK run

Among the various candidates for dark matter (DM), ultralight vector DM can be probed by laser interferometric gravitational wave detectors through the measurement of oscillating length changes in the arm cavities. In this context, KAGRA has a unique feature due to differing compositions of its mirrors, enhancing the signal of vector DM in the length change in the auxiliary channels. Here we present the result of a search for U(1)B−L gauge boson DM using the KAGRA data from auxiliary length channels during the first joint observation run together with GEO600. By applying our search pipeline, which takes into account the stochastic nature of ultralight DM, upper bounds on the coupling strength between the U(1)B−L gauge boson and ordinary matter are obtained for a range of DM masses. While our constraints are less stringent than those derived from previous experiments, this study demonstrates the applicability of our method to the lower-mass vector DM search, which is made difficult in this measurement by the short observation time compared to the auto-correlation time scale of DM

Nascite indesiderate tra danno e santit\ue0 della vita: alcune riflessioni comparate

L'articolo analizza problemi e prospettive delle azioni di wrongful life e bith ponendo attenzione alla recente sentenza della Cassazione che si esprime in senso favorevole. L'analisi condotta muove poi verso ordinamenti stranieri, di civil law come di common law, che, in via legislativa ovvero giurisprudenziale, hanno assunto posizioni consolidate sui predetti temi

La morte del danno da perdita parentale?

Nel commento viene illustrato l'attuale assetto del danno da perdita del rapporto parentale, il quale, alla luce della pronuncia delle Sezioni Unite di San Martino, sembra aver perso la sua connotazione autonoma per divenire un quid pluris in termini monetari del danno biologico, ove sussistente, ovvero del danno morale nella nuova accezione allargata

Violazione del consenso informato e nesso di causalit\ue0

La sentenza annotata affronta il tema della responsabilit\ue0 medica e, in particolare, il problema dell'accertamento del nesso causale tra condotta ed evento, nonch\ue9 dell'inquadramento sistematico dell'onere informativo. Nel commento, quindi, si ripercorrono le linee evolutive di detti due aspetti per giungere all'analisi del pi\uf9 recente ed attuale orientamento giurisprudenziale

A new videogame fot the rehabilitation of attention and executive functions following traumatic brain injury

The most common consequences of traumatic brain injury (TBI) includes impairment of attention and executive functions. Thus, TBI patients can be affected by psychomotor slowness and by difficulties in dealing with distraction, maintain a cognitive set for a long time, processing different simultaneously presented stimuli, and planning purposeful behavior. The aim of this study was to develop and test a computerized procedure to support the rehabilitation process of TBI patients. There is some evidence that action videogames could enhance a variety of cognitive skills. Therefore, we created a new videogame that activates attention and executive functions. Our videogame users have to plan the way to achieve a goal within a maze, to actively maintain the cognitive set representing the goal, and to monitor for errors. In different sessions, our users are required to perform two tasks alternatively (i.e., task switching) or to perform the two tasks simultaneously (i.e., divided attention). The videogame has a self-adaptive algorithm that calibrates task difficulty on-line, according to the user’s performance. In the first study, we validated the videogame with unimpaired participants, to confirm the involvement of the abilities it was conceived to improve. In the second study we administered a rehabilitation protocol to TBI patients. TBI patients were assigned in a controlled way to two treatment groups: the experimental group, that received the videogame treatment, while the control group, that received a standard treatment. Attention and executive functions have been assessed with a comprehensive neuropsychological test battery, twice before the treatments and twice after the treatments. We expected that our videogame could lead to better treatment outcomes given that it is more cognitively demanding and motivating for TBI patients than traditional treatments. Results partially confirmed the hypothesis but further investigation is necessary.Le conseguenze cognitive del trauma cranico (TC) sono varie ma con grande frequenza includono deficit delle funzioni attentive e delle funzioni esecutive. Infatti, i pazienti con TC possono presentare disturbi quali lentezza psicomotoria, difficoltà a contrastare la distrazione, difficoltà a mantenere un set cognitivo per un tempo protratto, difficoltà a portare a termine due compiti cognitivi contemporaneamente e infine difficoltà a pianificare comportamenti finalizzati. Lo scopo di questo studio è di sviluppare e testare una procedura computerizzata che possa essere utilizzata come supporto nel processo di riabilitazione dei pazienti con TC. Ci sono evidenze che l’utilizzo dei videogiochi di azione potenzi una varietà di abilità cognitive. Di conseguenza, abbiamo creato un nuovo videogioco con caratteristiche simili a quelle dei videogiochi commerciali ma nello stesso tempo ideato con l’intento di attivare specificatamente alcune funzioni attentive ed esecutive. L’utente deve pianificare il modo di raggiungere lo scopo, mantenere attivamente il set cognitivo relativo a quel particolare scopo e monitorare gli errori. In differenti sessioni, all’utente è richiesto di eseguire due compiti in maniera alternata (task switching) o di eseguirli contemporaneamente (dual task). Inoltre, il videogioco è controllato da un algoritmo adattativo che calibra la difficoltà dei compiti in funzione della prestazione corrente del giocatore. Nel primo studio abbiamo validato il videogioco con partecipanti sani per verificare che effettivamente il suo utilizzo richiedesse l’uso delle abilità ipotizzate. Nel secondo esperimento abbiamo somministrato un protocollo di riabilitazione a pazienti con TC. I pazienti sono stati assegnati a due gruppi di trattamento: al gruppo sperimentale veniva somministrato un trattamento con il videogame, al gruppo di controllo un trattamento più tradizionale. Veri aspetti delle funzioni attentive ed esecutive dei partecipanti sono state valutate con una ampia batteria di test neuropsicologici, due volte prima del trattamento e due volte in seguito al trattenimento. Avevamo ipotizzato di riscontrare un miglioramento significativamente maggiore nel gruppo trattato con il videogioco dal momento che esso è cognitivamente più impegnativo e allo stesso tempo più motivante rispetto al trattamento tradizionale. I risultati hanno confermato le ipotesi solo parzialmente ma ulteriori indagini sono necessarie

LA NUOVA IDENTIT\uc0 DELLA POLIZZA FIDEIUSSORIA

La decisione della Cassazione conferma la pronuncia delle Sezioni Unite del febbraio 2010: la polizza fideiussoria rilasciata nell'ambito degli appalti si discosta dai caratteri della fideiussione strictu sensu ed assume ex adverso quelli della garanzia atipica. Nel caso in cui, nel testo contrattuale, siano apposte le clausole a prima richiesta e senza eccezioni, ben pu\uf2, quindi, qualificarsi come contratto autonomo di garanzi