Revenues from related parties: A risk factor in the Italian listed company’s financial statements [Special issue]

As suggested in literature, related party transactions (RPTs) may be instruments to carry out abuse concerning conflicts of interest between ownership and control or between majority and minority shareholders. These transactions are subject to moral hazards, and for this reason are characterized by a greater inherent risk than other transactions. Regulators have recently strengthened existing rules, introducing new bans and requirements, aimed at guaranteeing the substantial and economic fairness of these transactions. This paper produces evidence which justifies the potential risk of these operations. In particular, focusing only on the revenues made with RP, we investigated the relation between the business trends and the intensity of RP revenues in the income statements. This study provides a starting point for future research, which could extend our analysis (which deals only with economic effects) to include financial effects and consider other elements that are influenced by the intensity of RP revenues