competitionlaw

During 2007 the Italian Competition Authority (ICA) found and punished six anticompetitive agreements. It also found one abuse of dominant position for which it imposed a € 2 million fine. One may wonder what happens to the fines paid by competition infringers. Under Italian law the fines imposed by the ICA shall be used to fund initiatives and programmes in favour of consumers. A recent judgment of the regional administrative court of Lazio gives an insight into how public authorities should organize and carry out these programmes. (TAR Lazio, chamber III ter,, 17 September 2008, case n. 8356, Codacons v Ministero Sviluppo Economico et al .). The region of Lazio funded a programme for consumers, the execution of which was entrusted to a private body, through a share of the proceeds of the competition fines imposed by the ICA that the state allocates to regional authorities. A consumer association, Codacons, contested this arrangements before the Tar Lazio, which however, found f...

The Italian Competition Authority has revised the commitments imposed on Alitalia to clear its 2006 acquisition of Volare (Autorità Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato, 25 giugno 2008, caso C7668B, Alitalia/Volare ). The revision is necessary in order to assess whether the original commitments are still needed, taking also into consideration a number of events that took place after the ICA conditionally approved the transaction. First, the administrative judges quashed for procedural reasons the tender procedure by which the Italian authorities sold Volare to Alitalia. A new tender procedure is now needed in order to select the purchaser of Volare. The acquisition of Volare by Alitalia can be still considered as a concentration, regardless of the outcome of the bidding procedure. As required by the definition of the notion of concentration set out by the Italian and EC merger control laws, a lasting change in the control of the corporate assets of Volare occurred, Alitalia havin...

The Italian Competition Authority (ICA) fined Federfarma Teramo, a local professional association, for price-fixing practices in the market for the so-called SOP pharmaceuticals (Auorità Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato, caso I684, Federfarma Teramo ). Federfarma Teramo is an association, its members being the great majority of pharmacies of the province of Teramo , Central Italy . Trade in SOP pharmaceuticals is subjected to a special regime since the enactment of the Bersani and has been fully liberalized with the 2008 Budget Act. The main elements of this regime include: No medical prescription is required; SOP pharmaceuticals are supplied through other distributive channels than pharmacies; Retailers are free to set selling prices. The ICA opened investigation upon receipt of an anonymous letter which contained a circular written on a Federfarma Teramo headed paper. The circular contained a table of the maximum rebates members are invited to apply to 119 S...

The Italian Competition Authority (ICA) has imposed a Euro 2,2 million fine on Parmalat for not having fulfilled a divestiture obligation resulting from a conditional merger clearance (Autorità Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato , 21 May 2008, Provvedimento n. 18325, case n. C3460F- Parmalat/Eurolat , www.agcm.it ). Article 19 of the Act n. 287/1990 expressly empowers the ICA to impose a penalty only when firms have implemented an anticompetitive concentration or have not complied with the measures adopted by the ICA in order to resolve the competition problem created by an already implemented concentration. However, it is trite law that the ICA has also the power to fine the merging parties in case they fail to comply with the commitments the ICA imposed on them in order to have the concentration approved. Non-compliance with commitments may have the same negative effect on the competitive structure of markets as the implementation of an anticompetitive concentration. In 2...

This question has been addressed by the French national competition authority, the Conseil de la Concurrence , in a recent case (see decision n. 08-D-08 of 29 April 2008). The question arose when Editions Gisserot, a publisher active in the field of tourist guides filed a complaint with the Conseil de la Concurrence about an alleged abusive conducts carried out by the Centre des Monuments Nationaux (CNM). CNM is a public entity, which is a publisher of tourist guides and manager of a chain of bookshops located inside a number of monumental sites in France . E ditions Gisserot and CNM have been since long trading partner, the tourist guides published by the former were sold on the premises of the latter. But since 2006 CNM discontinued selling in its bookshops in Mont-Saint Michel, Carcassone and Cluny the guides of Editions Gisserot to these sites, namely Le Mont-Saint Michel , La cité médiévale de Carcassone and L'Abbaye de Cluny . Editions Gisserot claimed that it was able...