45 ELETTRONICA SICULA (JUDGMENT) the Prefect against the requisition order. After the bankruptcy, however, the pursuit of local remedies was no longer a matter for ELSI's management but for the trustee in bankruptcy (Raytheon could, even after the bankruptcy, have influenced decisions of the committee of creditors, had it not decided against claiming in bankruptcy in respect of sums due to it as creditor; it did exercise some influence however through its subsidiary company, Raytheon Europe, which did claim as a creditor). 57. After the trustee in bankruptcy was appointed, he, acting for ELSI, by no means left the Italian authorities and courts unoccupied with ELSI's affairs. It was he who, under an Italian law of 1934, formally requested the Prefect to make his decision within 60 days of that request; which decision was itself the subject of an unsuccessful appeal by the Mayor to the President of Italy. On 16June 1970,the trustee, acting for the bankrupt ELSI, brought a suit against the Acting Minister of the Interior and the Acting Mayor of Palermo, asking the court to adjudge that the defendants should "pay to the bankrupt estate of Raytheon-Elsi . . . damages for the illegal requisition of the plant machinery and equipment . . . for the period from April 1 to September 30,1968, in the aggregate amount of Lire 2,395,561,600 plus interests . . ." On 2 February 1973, the Court of Palermo, as indicated above (paragraph 43), rejected the claim. The trustee in bankruptcy then appealed to the Court of Appeal of Palermo; which Court gave a judgment on 24 January 1974 which "partly revising the judgment of the Court of Palermo" ordered payment by the Ministry of the Interior of damages of 114,014,711 lire with interest. Appeal was taken finally to the Court of Cassation which upheld the decision of the Court of Appeal, by a decision of 26 April1975. 58. It is pertinent to note that this claim for damages (paragraph 42 above), as it came before the Court of Palermo in the action brought by the trustee, was described by that Court as being based (inter alia) upon the argument of the trustee in bankruptcy "that the requisition order caused an economic situation of such gravity that it immediately and directly triggered the bankruptcy of the company" ("il provvedimento di requisizione avrebbe determinato una situazione economica di tale pesantezza. da farne scaturire immediatamente e direttamente ilfallimento della società '7). Similarly the Court of Appeal of Palermo had to consider whether there was a "causal link between the requisition order and the company's bankruptcy". It is thus apparent that the substance of the claim brought to the