Carlo Cicala

Name Partner

A Cassation lawyer and PhD in Civil Law, Carlo Cicala is co-founder of Cicala Riccioni & Partners, awarded by TopLegal as the Best Italian Restructuring Boutique for 2026.

His professional practice is now mainly focused on insolvency and restructuring law, with particular reference to advising companies in financial distress on the use of the tools provided by the Italian Crisis and Insolvency Code, on the management of complex insolvency proceedings, and on the acquisition of distressed businesses.

Appointed by the Court of Rome as bankruptcy trustee, judicial commissioner and judicial liquidator in more than 40 proceedings since 2011, he is registered with the List of Judicial Commissioners and Extraordinary Commissioners kept by the Italian Ministry of Enterprise and Made in Italy (MIMIT), with the Roll of Judicial Administrators – Section of Business Management Experts (no. 2292), and as an expert in negotiated crisis composition with the Rome Chamber of Commerce, where he has been appointed in significant proceedings.

Since 2008, he has assisted some of the most prominent Italian companies subject to Extraordinary Administration (under the “Prodi-bis Law” and the “Marzano Law”), operating in strategic sectors such as steel, household appliances and services, with verified liabilities in the order of billions of euros. In such proceedings, he has also handled the coordination of foreign branches and subsidiaries in cross-border insolvency matters.

The experience gained in nationally significant proceedings has given him an in-depth understanding of how insolvency procedures work within large industrial groups and of the related cross-border dynamics.

Alongside his insolvency practice, he has a consolidated experience in tax litigation, which he carries out before the Italian Tax Justice Courts of first and second instance and before the Italian Supreme Court of Cassation. Before the Court of Cassation he has also recently obtained landmark rulings on bankruptcy clawback actions concerning bank remittances.

He is adjunct professor of Private Law at the Faculty of Economics of Niccolò Cusano University of Rome, where he also taught Bankruptcy Law for three years. He previously taught at the Universities of Parma and Teramo.

He is the author of numerous publications on private law and business law, including the following monographs:

• Lingua straniera e testo contrattuale [Foreign Language and Contractual Text] (Giuffrè, 2003);
• Profili del patto di famiglia [Aspects of the Family Pact] (Giuffrè, 2008);
• Studi sull’interpretazione [Studies on Interpretation] (Giuffrè, 2012);
• Il trust di partecipazioni societarie [The Trust of Corporate Shareholdings] (Rome, 2021);
• 11 insidie fiscali. Guida per l’imprenditore ed il professionista [11 Tax Pitfalls. A Guide for Entrepreneurs and Professionals] (with A. Riccioni and F. Trivieri, Rome, 2022).

He regularly participates, as speaker or organiser, in conferences, seminars and professional training courses on the topics of corporate crisis, negotiated crisis composition and insolvency regulation tools, including those promoted and organised by Restructuring Academy, of which he is President.