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Showing posts from July, 2020

The Italian Competition Authority opens an antitrust investigation against Apple and Amazon for an on-line sale ban

Following the receipt of a report filed by an aggrieved reseller, by a decision made on 14 July 2020 the Italian Competition Authority (ICA) has opened an Article 101 TFEU investigation against Apple and Amazon in the case I842 ( Vendita prodotti Apple e Beats su Amazon Marketplace orApple/Amazon Marketplace ). The target of the ICA investigation is an agreement concluded by Apple and Amazon that would have imposed an online sales ban on the Apple products. Retailers of Apple products are resellers that may be or not members of the Apple official distribution programme. Resellers that are not member of this network can lawfully sell Apple products as the Apple wholesalers supply them with such products.     Apple and Amazon compete in the market for on-line retailing activities for consumer electronics products in which they are the two biggest players. Both of them sell the Apple and Beats goods while Amazon also sells its own devices in competition with Apple. In addition to that

The Italian Competition Authority grants an interim order in the antitrust investigation concerning the audiovisual sector

Introduction Applying Article 14-bis of the Law no. 247/1990 [1] , the Italian Competition Authority (ICA) has recently issued an interim order against some trade associations in the Free Outdoor Cinemas case. The ICA believed that these associations would have breached Article 2 of the Law no. 287/90, which correspond to Article 101 TFEU, refusing to supply some customers [2] . The facts of the case Several entities running free outdoor cinemas in Rome and Milan reported to the ICA increasing difficulty in being licensed the rights to show movies at their premises due to the practices of distributors and other intermediaries. Following the receipt of these complaints, the ICA opened an antitrust investigation against some trade associations (ANICA, ANEC and ANEC Lazio) that were alleged to have coordinated their market conduct in violation of Article 2 of Law no. 287/1990 and Article 101 TFEU. ANICA was a trade association active in the audiovisual sector and regrouping