Is the Italian Competition Authority set to close two RPM investigations with a commitment decisions?

Resale price maintenance agreements (RPM) are generally considered as hard-core competition restraints that should attract a financial penalty. Therefore, firms that put into practice RPM may not have the chance to have the ensuing competition investigations opened against them closed by a commitment decisions. Nonetheless,  it seems that competition authorities may be ready to apply the commitment procedure also to serious competition infringements like RPM, as reflected by two recent decisions made by the Italian Competition Authority (ICA) in PhotovoltaicInverter (case I766) and in Enervit (case I718).
In these cases the ICA opened two Article 101 TFEU investigations regarding RPM affecting, respectively the photovoltaic industry in Photovoltaic Inverter and the sport integrator market in Enervit. The manufacturers alleged to have carried out a RPM in those cases submitted a set of commitments to address the competition concerns raised by the ICA. Interestingly, on the basis of a preliminary assessment, the ICA considered the commitments offered by the parties in Photovoltaic Inverter and Enervit as suitable to resolve the competition problems associated with the contested RPM. Therefore, it decided to publish the set of proposed commitments and subject them to a market test.
The flexible approach taken by the ICA in Photovoltaic Inverter and Enervit appears to be consistent with the recent decisional practice of the European Commission. In the Ebook case the Commission examined the price-fixing and RPM arrangements concluded between Apple and a number of publishers. Eventually it closed the proceedings with a commitment decision under Article 9 of Regulation 1/2003 (see here and here for the Commission’s commitment decisions).

It will remain to be seen now the outcome of the market test and if, depending on that, the ICA makes the commitments binding closing the investigations. 

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