⚜ Ab Inferis · MMXXVI ⚜
✠ Antonio Salerno, Esq. · Advocatus Diaboli ✠
Studio Legale Salerno
Born as a legal boutique in Apulia, in Taranto, specialised in banking and finance law. Then, thirty years ago, the North called — and Salerno answered.
Since then, specialisations and expertise have grown — through networks and new mandates across other professions. What follows is the wider project of TheDevilLawyer.
Today the firm is affiliated with a multidisciplinary network of professionals built around legal rigour — where tax, corporate, financial and advisory expertise meet. One direction for restructuring, banking litigation, M&A and hospitality real estate — and beyond.
No bouncing between firms. No silence between advisors. One vision of the case — legal, fiscal, financial — stress-tested line by line, before the other side does.
Ubi societas, ibi ius. Where there is society, there is law.
The rest — the mask, the method, the story — begins just below ↓
⚜ The Firm in Numbers ⚜
Real numbers, aligned with the manifesto. They update on their own every time we publish. No invented results.
32+
Years in court
8
Practice fronts
8
Total publications
1
Doctrine in the making
Ab Inferis
3 volumes on sale (in Italian)
4 issues published (Italian)
1 issue published (Italian)
2 weekly publications (Italian)
Eight fronts
8 fronts, 3 Bullarium volumes, 2 editorial series for 5 issues published, one doctrine in the making. The rest — the constellation — is Work in Progress.
Practice Areas
The matters of the manifesto, told in full. The same ones you read in the Ab Inferis casket — here spelled out, case by case.
Preventive arrangement (concordato preventivo), negotiated crisis composition (CNC), debt restructuring agreements (ADR), judicial liquidation and over-indebtedness procedures. Strategies to save the value of the business — and, when there's no other way, to lose it well.
Banking litigation, anatocism and usury, challenge of loan agreements and credit contracts. M&A and corporate law, holdings and control structures, shareholder agreements, generational succession, joint ventures. Real estate and hospitality finance. Where money flows, that's where the game is played.
Tokens, smart contracts, digital assets and DAOs. MiCA Regulation, CONSOB and Bank of Italy supervision, crypto tax planning, litigation over failed exchanges and disguised financial products. A frontier where law usually arrives late — here it doesn't.
EU Regulation 2024/1689 and its Italian implementing decrees. Classification of high-risk systems, data governance, liability for automated decisions. When a machine decides on a human, someone must answer for its rules — and that someone often gets defended here.
Sovereign cloud, data protection beyond GDPR, dependency on non-EU providers, strategic outsourcing contracts, contractual cybersecurity. State sovereignty runs through the contracts companies sign: not just geopolitics — clause by clause.
Securitisation 2.0: tokenized NPLs and UTPs, security token offerings, asset-backed tokens, on-chain settlement. Structuring, regulatory due diligence, litigation. The old credit world meets blockchain — and someone has to write the rules before damage writes them.
Acquisitions, joint ventures and cross-border restructurings, with a focus on Italy ↔ Europe. Legal and tax due diligence, golden power, FDI screening, EU antitrust, post-closing integration. When an Italian deal goes wrong abroad (or vice versa) — we read the contract, we read the silences.
Why us
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We don't write to please the file. We write to win it. Every paper, every clause, every deposition is built to survive the other side's best attack — because we run that attack ourselves, first.
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You speak to the attorney, not the gatekeeper. From first call to closing argument, the same name is on the file. Fewer billable layers, more accountability.
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We say what's possible and what isn't, on day one. If we can't deliver, we say so. If we can, we put it in writing — and then we deliver.
The Firm's Magazine
Law, business and power, seen from the Devil's desk. The collection grows one issue at a time — collect them all.
⚠ All issues are currently published in Italian. English editions are on the roadmap.
The Standpoint · N. IV · 13 giugno 2026
«Il giorno del record e della tregua: ma le regole si scrivono altrove»
Mercati al record e tregua in vista, ma in Gazzetta un decreto sposta i termini del processo e riscrive l'esame da avvocato. E la Cassazione (ord. 18764/2026) inchioda le Srl di servizi che fanno contabilità. Format feroce, fatti blindati.
Published in Italian.
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The Standpoint · N. III · 12 giugno 2026
«Se ne va un maestro della forma, mentre la macchina ne chiede una nuova»
Muore Natalino Irti, maestro del diritto come forma. E intanto i decreti AI Act spostano l'onere della prova nei danni da intelligenza artificiale: per il difensore è un'arma a doppio taglio. Più UE & tributario.
Published in Italian.
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The Standpoint · N. II · 11 giugno 2026
«Il giorno in cui lo Stato ha provato a normare la macchina (e se stesso)»
I decreti AI Act italiani arrivano sul tavolo del CdM: la macchina non decide sull'uomo, ma il perimetro è scivoloso. Più il fisco al 26%: quando lo Stato corregge sé stesso.
Published in Italian.
Download PDF📖 Browse the full archive
Every issue released, to flip through one by one.
The Standpoint · N. IV · 13 giugno 2026
«Il giorno del record e della tregua: ma le regole si scrivono altrove»
Free to read · no registration · new issues on the way
The Devil's Collection
A space for our readers, where one can rest from courtrooms and sharpen one's teeth at the table. Here we dine with the living, drink with the dead, and learn restructuring law laughing like the damned.
Convivium is born — the first collection where Italian Restructuring Law turns into noir. Between trulli and olive groves of the Itria Valley, an entrepreneur disappears, a bankruptcy looms and one signature too many weighs like a sentence. To investigate, the Advocatus Diaboli.
«The Weight of a Signature» — Issue I. Reads like a novel, bites like a treatise.
★ Convivium I · «The Weight of a Signature» · free novel
⚠ Currently published in Italian. English translation on the roadmap.
We accept coffee, not charity — if we make you smile.
Enter Convivium on Substack →The Bullarium
Short books. Sharp doctrine. One topic at a time, written to be used in court the same week.
⚠ All volumes are currently published in Italian. English editions are coming.
Liability beyond mere appointment
A handbook for boards: when delegation does not transfer responsibility, and the line between supervision and decision becomes thin.
Italian società tra professionisti
The legal form that joins independents into one corporate body — without losing the independence each one is sworn to.
The maths the bank doesn't print
Anatocism, compound interest, opacity in loan repayment schedules. The numbers behind the most fought line of every Italian credit case.
FAQ
Contact
Tell us your case. If we can help, we will say so — clearly. If we cannot, we will tell you who can. First call is free, 30 minutes, no commitment.
✉ avv.salerno@libero.it
☎ +39 393 121 5278
📍 Via Principe Umberto 22, 35042 Este (PD), Italy