INFOCAMERE/CERVED (Start of full phase investigation)
PRESS RELEASE
The Italian Competition Authority has initiated a proceeding against all of the Italian Chambers of Commerce to investigate alleged violations of Section 2 (restrictive agreements) of Law no. 287/90, as well as against Infocamere and Cerved for an alleged violation of Section 3 (abuses).
It is alleged that the Chambers of Commerce, whose institutional objective consists in providing the public access, also on line, to many economic and commercial information ("Chambers information"), have undertaken uniform and parallel behaviours in order to deny third parties' access to the on line Chambers information, and, at the same time, to allow only Infocamere and Cerved the availability of such information. It is to be noted that Infocamere and Cerved constitute a unique economic entity, which is composed of three companies, Infocamere spa, Cerved Holding Spa and Cerved Spa, and whose shareholders are represented by the Chambers of Commerce.
The economic entity "Infocamere-Cerved", in consequence of the Chambers of Commerce's conduct, holds a dominant position with regards to the supply of on line Chambers information. In this way, Infocamere-Cerved seems to exploit its dominant position abusively in order to impose unjustified contractual conditions and to limit the introduction of technically innovative interconnection processing, by excluding those that are more convenient for their clients/rivals. In particular, Infocamere-Cerved seems to adopt the following behaviours:
a) the application of prices much higher than the ordinary administrative fees to be paid for the direct access to the on line Chambers data bases;
b) the imposition, within the contract to be stipulated for the supply of balance sheets, of the obligation to acquire the whole data base;
c) the provision, within the contract for providers of access to the on line Chambers data bases, of a minimum guaranteed equal to 5 million lira;
d) the restriction on the ways of supplying access to the on line Chambers information.
All these behaviours hamper the entrance or the permanence in the market of the companies which make use of the Chambers information to supply economic-commercial services, in competition with Infocamere-Cerved.
On the basis of the findings collected during a preliminary examination, the Authority alleges that the Chambers of Commerce's conduct violates Section 2, subsection 2, of Law no. 287/90, and that the Infocamere-Cerved's conduct can constitute an abuse of dominant position in violation of Section 3 of the same Law.
The investigation is to be concluded by February 6th, 1997.