Cleary Gottlieb partner Matteo Beretta and associate Gianluca Faella contributed the Italy chapter to The Dominance and Monopolies Review, 4th Edition.
“Abuse of dominance within the Italian market, or in a substantial part of it, is prohibited by Article 3 of Law 10 October 1990, No. 287 (the Competition Act), which closely resembles Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). Article 3 does not provide a definition of abuse but lists examples of abusive conduct.
In principle, Italian competition rules apply only to practices that do not affect intra-EU trade. As the Italian Competition Authority (ICA) and the Italian courts tend to interpret broadly the notion of effect on intra-EU trade, in most cases they apply EU rules. However, the choice of the applicable rules does not materially affect the outcome of a case, given that, pursuant to Article 1(4) of the Competition Act, Article 3 must be interpreted in accordance with well-established EU principles.”