competitionlaw

By a decision made on 15 June 2016, Case A496 Gara TPL Padova , the Italian Competition Authority (ICA) has opened an Article 102 TFEU investigation against Busitalia Veneto (BV), Busitalia Sita Nord (BSN) and APS Holding (APS). BSN and APS were the holders of the concessions for the urban public transport and non-urban public transport services in the territorial ambit of Padua, respectively. In April 2015 BV purchased BSN and APS, stepping in for BSN and APS as provider of those transport services. The ICA investigation was triggered by a complaint filed by the Province of Padua (PP), one of the local authorities in charge for the provision of those public transport services, which reported a number of allegedly abusive conducts implemented by BV, BSN and APS. The relevant product market was the market for the provision of local public transport services within the territorial ambit of Padua, in which PD enjoyed a dominant position. The first abusive conduct contested to BV was f...

By a commitment decision made on the basis of the Article 14-ter of the Italian Competition Law no. 247/1990 in E-Class/Borsa Italiana, the Italian Competition Authority (ICA) has closed an investigation against Borsa Italiana (BIt) [1] . BIt was alleged to have abused its dominant position by negatively affecting the market for the services for the provision of financial information by making its competitors’ access to such essential inputs more difficulty. The decision of the ICA The ICA started the Article 102 TFEU investigation against BIt following the receipt of a complaint filed by e-Class. e-Class was an electronic publisher that also provided financial information services. BIt was a vertically integrated group that enjoyed a dominant position, or more precisely a monopoly position, in the market for the organization and management of the platforms for trading financial instruments and equities. Its subsidiary, Borsa Italiana Market Services (BIMS) operated in the down...

By a decision handed down on 25 May 2016 the Luxembourg Competition Authority (LCA) has closed also the second investigation into abusive conducts in the markets for the organization of music concerts. The first investigation was opened against Philharmonie, which was then aquitted of any allegations (Case n. 2015-RP-02, Philharmonie, http://www.concurrence.public.lu/fr/decisions/abus-de-position-dominante/2015/decision-2015-rp-02/Decision-n_-2015-RP-02-du-22-5-2015.pdf ) . The second decision was taken with regard to Centre de Musique Amplifiées (CMA), which was found to not have infringed competition (Case no. 2016-FO-02, Centre de Musique Amplifiées ). CMA was a public law entity created by the Law of 26 May 2004, which entrusted it with the tasks to organize amplified music concerts, manage its music halls and its other assets. The abusive conducts allegedly carried out by CMA included organizing loss-making concerts by reason of the public funding granted by the State, chargin...

In the Kajman case (Eugenia Mocek, Jadwiga Wenta KAJMAN v OHIM and Lacoste, ECLI:EU:T:2015:738, T-364/13 General Court of the EU, 30 September 2015) the General Court of the EU (GC) has confirmed the OHIM rejection of the application for the registration of a mark similar to the iconic Lacoste logo for leather goods, clothing and footwear because there was a likelihood of confusion arising out of an average conceptual similarity and the high distinctiveness of the Lacoste mark. The article is published here .  

The Italian Competition Authority (ICA) has closed by a commitment decision an Article 101 TFEU investigation into a co-marketing agreement. The parties offered to amend the agreement by removing and eliminating the clauses of the agreement that were thought to be conducive to market sharing between the parties. Arguably, the ICA saw that the co-marketing agreements might have pro-competitive effects if they are not price-fixing or market sharing arrangements in disguise. The article is published here.

The Italian Competition Authority (ICA) has opened an Article 102 TFEU investigation against Net Services (NS), a provider for IT services for the implementation of the system for the newly introduced on-line civil trial ( decision of 11 May 2016, Case A490). Being the awardee of some public contracts, NS had the exclusive for the supply of IT services for the management of the platform required for the working of the on-line civil trial. NS was also an important player in the downstream competitive market for the supply of application software. The ICA focused on the discriminatory conducts carried out by NS against its competitors in the dowstreamt. First, NS failed to give competitors in a timely and complete way all the technical information required to ensure the full interoperability between the NS platform and the competitors’ software. Second, NS made available to competitors a model office different from that it used to develop its own application software. Third, NS install...

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...