The Gift of the Providence: An Italian administrative court qualified a theatre as an essential facility
Can the doctrine of an essential facility apply to a theatre of a small town? This question has been addressed by the Regional Administrative Court for Lazio (Tar Lazio) in the judgment in the Teatro della Provvidenza case. According to the Tar Lazio the reply to the question was in the affirmative and it categorized the Teatro della Provvidenza or Theatre of Providence owned by the Diocese of Vallo della Lucania, a small town in Southern Italy, as an essential facility. Thus, the message coming through the judgment is that the doctrine of essential facilities also applies to small-sized infrastructures, provided that the 4-pronged test for the application of the doctrine is met. However, the validity of this idea in Teatro della Provvidenza is marred by the shoddy administration of the test for essential facility made by the Tar Lazio when assessing the non-duplicability requirement. Indeed, firstly it embraced quite a narrow definition of the relevant geographic market, which was