Cleary Gottlieb represented Sky Italia (Sky) in its win against Digital World Television (DWT) before the Court of Appeal of Milan.
In a judgment published on September 21, 2021, the Commercial Section of the Court of Appeal of Milan rejected in full the appeal filed by DWT (active in audiovisual programs for adults) against the judgment in which the Court of Milan had already rejected its claims for damages against Sky of several million euro.
DWT had alleged breach of contract as well as abuse of dominant position and economic dependence resulting from Sky’s interruption of the provision of technical services, on December 31, 2014, after the natural expiry of the contract.
Concurring with the findings of the Court of Milan, among other things, the Court of Appeal once again ruled out any “abusive conduct or bad faith in negotiating on the part of the appellant Sky,” considering “DWT’s allegation that the appellant Sky had ‘interrupted the service immediately, without notice and without complying with any request to postpone at least for a short time the interruption of the service’ to be completely unfounded and incomprehensible.”
The judgment could definitively close a long-standing legal proceeding, which began in 2015 with the requests for interim measures filed by DWT before the Court of Milan and rejected both in first instance and on appeal.