competitionlaw

The Italian Competition Authority (ICA) has recently opened an Article 102 TFEU investigation against Nuovo Imaie (NI), a collecting society of related rights ( Case A489 ). NI, successor to the former legal monopolist, dominated the markets for the management of related rights on musical and audiovisual works. On the basis of the facts and evidence produced by two competitors of NI that lodged a complaint, the ICA took the view that NI might have abused its dominant position in three ways. First, by discriminating the authors, who were not its members, making the payment of royalties conditional upon their joining NI. Second, without any objective justification, NI  refused competitors access to its database of works and authors, which was essential input for collecting societies to be able to provide their services. Third, NI signed a number of exclusive agreements with foreign collecting societies for mutual assistance in the collection of royalties. NI competitors were unable...

The recent consolidation process in the Italian maritime transport sector have changed the competition landscape of the market. First, the merger between Tirrenia and Compagnia Italiana di Navigazione (CIN) [1] and the subsequent acquisition of CIN and by Moby Onorato Partecipazioni (OP) [2] , both conditionally cleared by the Italian Competition Authority (ICA), led to the concentration of a substantive market power on in the hands of Moby and CIN lessening the market competition. In essence, Moby and CIN, both of which are now controlled by OP, enjoy a very strong market positon being almost the only ferry operators in many maritime links between Sardinia and Continental Italy. Their position has been recently challenged by Grimaldi when decided to relaunched its Civitavecchia-Porto Torres link and entering the Livorno-Olbia and Civitavecchia-Olbia routes. Unsurprisingly, the commercial policies of Moby and CIN attracted the attention of the ICA. In the past the ICA has consider...