competitionlaw

The Italian antitrust authority targets an abusive conduct in the gas natural market By a decision made on 12 March 2019 [1] , the Italian Competition Authority (ICA) opened an antitrust enquiry against the current holders of the concessions for the provision of distribution services for natural gas in the area of Genoa. The conducts of the incumbents allegedly interfered with the tender competition called for by the municipality of Genoa to award a new concession for the distribution of natural gas The facts of the case Ireti, Italgas Reti and 2I Rete Gas are the current providers of the services for the distribution of natural gas in the territorial ambit named ATEM Genova 1 that encompasses 24 municipalities in the metropolitan area of Genoa. According to the relevant regulatory framework, the Municipality of Genoa (MoG), as contracting authority, had to launch a competitive tender procedure for the award of the new concession contracts for the distribution of natural g...

Introduction In the Tercas case [1] the General Court of the European Union (GC) has annulled a previous decision by which the Commission found illegal and incompatible state aid in support package granted by national authorities to a bank. The GC held that the Commission had wrongly qualified the national measures as state aid. Indeed, the Commission failed to demonstrate that the measures were attributable to the state and used public resources. These are constitutive elements of the notion of state aid and are essential conditions for the application of Article 107 TFEU. The legal background The Fondo interbancario di tutela dei depositi (FITD) is a private law consortium set up by Italian banks on voluntarily basis in 1987. The purpose of the FITD is to run a guarantee scheme for the depositors and it was recognized by the financial supervisor in charge, the Bank of Italy (BI), as one of the deposit guarantee schemes authorised to operate in Italy in accordance to Dire...

As is known, Luxembourg is the only jurisdiction within the EU to have not adopted a merger control regime. Notwithstanding that, on the basis of the Continental Can doctrine developed by EU court the Luxembourg Competition Authority (Conseil de la Concurrence or CdlC) can ascertain whether the implementation of a merger is compatible with the EU and corresponding national rules on abusive conducts. The CdlC followed this approach in Utopia where it considered whether a horizontal merger in the market for the management of movie theatres resulted in merged entity abusing its dominant position. More recently, in Fédération des Artisans v Encevo the CdlC dealt with the question whether the Continental Can doctrine could also apply to a non-horizontal merger. The Encevo Group (Encevo) is the Luxembourg energy leader and a key supplier of natural gas and electricity. Paul Wagner & Fils (PWF) is the leading player in the Luxembourg market for fitting buildings with technical fa...