Maria Francesca Fontanella is a founding partner of LFC Studio Legale. From 2000 to 2021 he collaborated with a leading Italian law firm operating in the field of Corporate Criminal Law. Since 2003 you have been a member of the Milan Bar Association.
She is involved in corporate criminal law and have gained specific experience following criminal trials for corporate, tax and financial crimes, bankruptcy crimes, crimes against the Italian and foreign Public Administration, crimes against property through fraud and criminal liability in the health sector. Amongst others, she has participated in criminal cases for: disputed market manipulation of an insurance Group related to a takeover bid launched on a Bank Institute’s shares; disputed obstruction of oversight Authorities and illicit formation of assembly majority by the management of a primary Italian Banking Institute. Additionally, she assisted an Insurance Company in various damaging fraud cases.
She has gained in-depth experience in environmental criminal law and criminal liability of the employer for occupational diseases, with particular regard to asbestos-related diseases, and in the field of crimes against public safety, participating in the most important Italian criminal trials of the last Twenty years. Additionally, she has followed the complex criminal trials concerning industrial plants in: Porto Marghera, Crotone, Brindisi, Verbania, Mantova and the Turbigothermoelectric power plant.
In the same matters she carries out out-of-court consultancy activities and draws up delegations of functions. She has drawn up Organization and Management Models pursuant to Legislative Decree No. 231/01, a matter in relation to which she advises and is actively engaged, also as a single-person Supervisory Body of leading companies. Since 2003 she has been enrolled in the Milan Bar and since 2016 in the special register for legal aid in front of the Court of Cassation. She was a member of the Criminological Research Group (GRC) of the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore of Milan and a member of the CSGP – “Federico Stella” Study Center on Criminal Justice and Criminal Policy, at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore of Milan, since the constitution.
In this context, she collaborated – among others – in the initiative conducted in the 2007/2008 academic year, entitled: Start-up experiences of supervisory bodies pursuant to Legislative Decree 231/2001, the results of which were merged into two publications, edited by the Association for the Development of Bank and Stock Exchange Studies and the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore. She is a speaker during conferences, seminars, round tables and lecturer mainly at the School of Specialization for Legal Professions of the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore of Milan and the Biennial Course of Technique and Deontology of the Criminal Lawyer for the qualification for Office Defense organized by the Criminal Chamber of Milan. She is a member of the European Criminal Bar Association.
Member of the Milan Bar Association’s Criminal Justice Commission
Advisory Board Member of Assoholding
Scientific Director of the Assoholding’s Corporate Insolvency Observatory
Member of European Criminal Bar Association.
Member of Associazione dei Componenti degli Organismi di Vigilanza ex D.Lgs. n. 231/01 (AODV231)