The Italian Competition Authority finds a collusive tendering practice in the market for post-production TV programmes

In Servizi di post-produzione di programmi televisivi-Rai (RaiTV post production services) the Italian Competition Authority (ICA) has found that several operators infringed Article 2 of the Italian Competition Act no. 287/90, corresponding to Article 101 TFEU (http://www.agcm.it/trasp-statistiche/doc_download/4881-i771ch-istrsanzomi-x-pubbl.html).
The ICA found that the parties put into practice a single complex anti-competitive agreement to regulate their bidding for the service contracts tendered out by RAI and fix prices to be charged on RAI. The agreement was implemented in two phases. In the first phase, which took place in the 2011-summer 2013 period, the trade association NIBA played a pivotal role. NIBA was created with the purpose to enable its members to withstand to the new aggressive policies of RAI aiming at imposing lower prices on its suppliers. The parties exchanged sensitive information through NIBA, that also recommended to their members which prices to offer to RAI.
The second phase of the anti-competitive arrangement was carried out in the July 2013-October 2013 period, whe the parties put in place a stronger form of coordination also including the operators that were not members of NIBA. In this way the whole sector colluded on the prices to be charged on RAI.
The ICA attributed responsibility for the first phase of the collusion to the parties that took part in at least a meeting of NIBA or had their representatives sitting in the board of NIBA. The parties that partecipated in the meeting held on 2 July 2013 or 17 September 2013 and submitted a bid were found liable for the second phase of the collusion. As a whole, the ICA condemned 23 suppliers of post-production services for infringement of Article 2 of the Italian Competitio Act levying fines totalling up about € 800.000,00.


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