The Italian Competition Authority closes an investigation into an alleged excessive pricing in the airport sector with a commitment decision


By a recent commitment decision (Case A442 Assofort/ADR-Servizi Aeroportuali) the Italian Competition Authority (ICA) has closed an investigation against the manager of airport of Rome Fiumicino (FCO), Aeroporti di Roma (ADR). More precisely, ADR was alleged to have abused its dominant position in the market for the provision of access to common and exclusive use facilities necessary to carry out economic activities at FCO. In the ICA view, ADR would have charged excessive prices to Hertz Italiana (Hertz). Hertz through its local agent (DMH) provided low cost innovative rent-a- car services at FCO, labelled Advantage-rent-car (Advantage). Advantage enable clients to make their booking though a dedicated internet site and upon arrival at FCO they are picked up by shuttle buses calling at the parking lots located outside the airport where they can find the cars they have booked.
ADR objected to Hertz that in carrying out the Advantage Business it breached the sub-concession contract and asked it for payment of the royalties for such activity. Consistently with its practice (Ibar/Aeroportidi Roma, Aeroporti di Roma/Tariffe aeroportuali, Sea /Tariffe aeroportuali) the ICA believed that the ADR conducts amounted to an excessive pricing as it imposed on Hertz to pay fees for services ADR did not supplied to it. Indeed, Hertz did not need access to space within the FCO terminal to provide supply Advantage customers.
To resolve the competition problems found by the ICA, ADR submitted a set of behavioral commitments that, following a market test, have been approved and made binding by the ICA. First, ADR committed to make available up to eight bus bays at the FCO terminal to be used by low cost car renting  businesses to pick up and alight customers. In case the demand exceeds the offered capacity, ADR will carry out a competitive procedure to select to whom grant access to the bays according to transparent and non-discriminatory criteria. As for the access  fees to the bays, ADR committed to charge a fixed sum that is not linked to the economic performances of the operators with a maximum ceiling calculated on the basis of the average prices in five contracts signed by ADR with five operators. The ICA rightly concluded that the above commitments should help develop the nascent low cost rent-a-car business by keeping low the entry barriers for firms planning to launch such services.
Before concluding it can be said that in this case, in line with its decisional practice, the ICA relied on a commitment decision to shape the structure of the market in a more friendly competition fashion. On the one hand, it obtained from ADR to reserve a number of bays to the shuttle buses operated by the low cost rent-a-car firms. On the other hand, it imposed on ADR to not rise access fees beyond a certain threshold. It remains to be seen whether the ICA would be able to monitor the ADR pricing policy compliance with the obligations set out in the decision.

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