Information in the sense of news about events, facts, figures or initiatives having a specific significance and purpose in relation to an entity's activity - is a strategic component of a company's assets and essential for its success.

The appropriate and timely sharing of information is a necessary condition for the effective pursuit of business objectives, and underlies the most important corporate processes.

Without prejudice to the provisions of applicable law concerning the protection and dissemination of particular categories of information, such as the personal and sensitive data referred to in the Code for the Protection of Personal Data ( Legislative Decree 196/2003, the use of information must observe the general principles regarding the efficient exploitation and safeguarding of a company's resources, which can be expressed in the case in question as the "need to know" rule.

The use of information for purposes other than the activity of the business is to be considered an abuse and, on a general basis, all those who work to promote the interest of the Pirelli Group are subject to confidentiality requirements concerning the information they acquire in or for the performance of their duties.

However, the law imposes an obligation to disclose information not known to the public concerning a company and its subsidiaries which is of a precise nature and which, if it were made public, would be likely to have a significant effect on the price of that company's financial instruments (inside information).

The law also requires informational equality to be restored if inside information is disclosed prematurely to third parties who are not subject to confidentiality requirements under laws, regulations, bylaws or agreements.

This explains the great delicacy of the stage preceding the "perfection" of inside information in which not only is it necessary to impose a confidentiality regime on inside information "in the making," so as to avoid triggering the immediate disclosure obligation, but above all there is the fact that premature disclosure could be misleading for the market and/or harmful for the business.

This procedure covers the handling including the public disclosure not only of inside information but also of information which could become such; it seeks to reconcile the fluidity of internal information processes with safeguarding information, especially as regards the give and take between the disclosure of inside information and the need to keep it confidential while it is being perfected.

In this respect the procedure ties in with the internal rules of general application concerning the classification and management of information from the standpoint of confidentiality.