The Italian Competition Authority opens an Article 102 TFEU investigation into the gas market against ENI
By a decision taken on 6 March 2012 the Italian Competition Authority (ICA) has opened an Article 102 TFEU investigation against ENI (Case A440) , the dominant undertaking in the Italian gas market. The ICA believed that the ENI commercial conduct would amount to hoarding capacity, thereby harming its industrial customers. ENI owns the majority of primary capacity for the Transitgas and TAG gas pipelines, which link the North-European spot gas markets, namely the TTF and ZEE, to Italy. Regularly each year ENI organized auctions for allocate secondary capacity for these pipelines to interested third parties. Gas Intensive Società Consortile (GI), a joint-venture regrouping more than 300 firms that need large amount of gas, the so-called industrial customers filed a complaint with the ICA, indicating that since April 2011 ENI would have changed its commercial policy. Indeed, GI complained that, contrary to what it used to do, ENI refused to offer its secondary capacity on the Transit