competitionlaw

Following the receipt of a complaint lodged by a transport trade association, the Italian Competition Authority (ICA) has opened an investigation into an alleged abuse of manager of Rome airport of Fiumicino (FCO), Aeroporti di Roma (ADR) ( Case A442, Associazione Nazionale Fornitori Trasporti-Assofort/ADR ). The relevant market for the ICA investigation was the market for access to the facilities of exclusive or common use for carrying commercial activities at FCO. ADR had a dominant position in this market as it hold a concession for the management of the airport. At FCO Demontis Holding (DMH) carried out on behalf of Hertz the activity of renting cars to the customers had previously hired them at dedicated web sites (Advantage-rent-a-car). A shuttle bus service supplied by DMH collected customers at the air terminal and carried them to a parking lot located outside the FCO perimeter. ADR informed DMH that in providing the Advantage-rent-a-car services the latter infringed th...

Can the doctrine of an essential facility apply to a theatre of a small town? This question has been addressed by the Regional Administrative Court for Lazio (Tar Lazio) in the judgment in the Teatro della Provvidenza case. According to the Tar Lazio the reply to the question was in the affirmative and it categorized the Teatro della Provvidenza or Theatre of Providence owned by the Diocese of Vallo della Lucania, a small town in Southern Italy, as an essential facility. Thus, the message coming through the judgment is that the doctrine of essential facilities also applies to small-sized infrastructures, provided that the 4-pronged test for the application of the doctrine is met. However, the validity of this idea in Teatro della Provvidenza is marred by the shoddy administration of the test for essential facility made by the Tar Lazio when assessing the non-duplicability requirement. Indeed, firstly it embraced quite a narrow definition of the relevant geographic market, which was...

By a decision taken on 6 March 2012 the Italian Competition Authority (ICA) has opened an Article 102 TFEU investigation against ENI (Case A440) , the dominant undertaking in the Italian gas market. The ICA believed that the ENI commercial conduct would amount to hoarding capacity, thereby harming its industrial customers. ENI owns the majority of primary capacity for the Transitgas and TAG gas pipelines, which link the North-European spot gas markets, namely the TTF and ZEE, to Italy. Regularly each year ENI organized auctions for allocate secondary capacity for these pipelines to interested third parties. Gas Intensive Società Consortile (GI), a joint-venture regrouping more than 300 firms that need large amount of gas, the so-called industrial customers filed a complaint with the ICA, indicating that since April 2011 ENI would have changed its commercial policy. Indeed, GI complained that, contrary to what it used to do, ENI refused to offer its secondary capacity on the Transit...

Pursuant to the special powers conferred on it by the Law Decree 347/2003 as amended by the Law Decree 134/2008, the Italian Government authorized the Alitalia/CAI merger on the basis of prevailing national interests. The Italian Competition Authority(ICA) was thus deprived of its regulatory jurisdiction on the transaction. As the merging parties were the national flag carrier, Alitalia, and one of its next competitor, Air One, the merger was likely to lead to monopoly or quasi monopoly position on many routes, and in particular on the very profitable Milan Linate (LIN) -Rome Fiumicino (FCO). Nevertheless, the Government granted a three-year antitrust immunity to the Alitalia/CAI merger. Therefore, the ICA could only impose behavioral remedies in order to mitigate the expected serious anticompetitive effects of the merger. Since the three year period of immunity expired on 3 December 2011, at the beginning of December 2011the ICA started an investigation into the Alitalia/CAI merger in...