competitionlaw

The Italian Competition Authority (ICA) has recently opened an Article 102 TFEU investigation against London Stock Exchange Holdings Italia (LSEHI) and its subsidiaries Borsa Italiana (BI) and BIt Market Services (BIMS) ( Case A-482, Borsa Italiana , ). BI had a dominant position in the market for the organization and management of platforms for the trading of securities. In such a capacity it supplied financial data regarding the transactions executed through its trading platforms to financial intermediaries or information providers. The recipients of such data then used them to carry on their own activities in the downstream markets for the provision of financial information. The ICA examined the terms BI inserted in the supply contracts since 2013, whereby it imposed on information providers the obligation to periodically give it a detailed list of their customers. The ICA also considered the auditing activities conducted by BI with regard to the information providers that...

In the recent decision in the Case I772, Mercato del Calcestruzzo FriuliVenezia, Giulia , the Italian Competition Authority (ICA) has found two hard-core cartels affecting the markets for the production and sale of concrete in the the north-eastern region of Friuli Venezia Giulia. The ICA started the proceedings on the basis of the evidence supplied by a concrete producer that whistled the blower by revealing the anti-competitive arrangements. The ICA found two distinct competition infrigements, one for the provinces of Udine and Pordenone and the the other for the province of Trieste, given that the concrete markets had a local territorial scope. By these agreements the parties agreed to fix prices and allocate market shares. The parties communicated which customers they would supply so that they could continue supplying their historical clients without running the risks that the other cartelists would win their clients away. A trade associaton, Intermodale, played an instrumental ...

Introduction By a decision made on 25 March the Italian Competition Authority (ICA) fined the manager of the Milan airports, SEA, for infringing Article 102 TFEU ( Case A474, Cedicor/SEA ). SEA foreclosed the market for the management of airport facilities for the provision of handling services for the general aviation by preventing an efficient competitor, Cedicor, from entering the relevant markets. The facts of the case By an agreement first signed in 1961 and recently renewed until 2041 the manager of the airports of Milan, SEA, awarded to ATA an exclusive concession for the management of the centralized infrastructures at the airport of Linate, including the facilities required by the general aviation. The last renewal of the concession agreement in 2008 was made conditional upon the ATA commitment to renovate a number of facilities. SEA reproached ATA for failing to comply with that commitment, though it did not challenge the validity of the agreement. In 2012  SAPAM, th...

The Italian Competition Authority (ICA) has recently closed the Case I744 GareRCA per Trasporto Pubblico Locale by fining two major insurance firms, Generali and Unipol Sai, for cartelizing the market for motor vehicles insurance. The cartel was implemented by the parties in the shape of a concerted practice. It was a single complex anti-competitive agreement aimed at coordinating the parties' conducts in relation to the competitive tender procedures organized by many local bus operators to select the provider of insurance coverage for their fleet of vehicles. The ICA observed a parallelism in the conducts of the parties. They refrained from bidding in competitive procedures and only the incumbent supplier bid in the successive negotiated procedures. In this way contracts were awarded to the incumbent supplier at much higher prices. The other evidentiary pieces on which the ICA based its findings were the qualified contacts that the parties had through the working party of a...