ACCOUNTANTS AND BUSINESS CONSULTANTS SERVICE FEES (Start of full phase investigation)
PRESS RELEASE
The Italian Competition Authority initiated a proceeding against the Italian Order of Accountants and the Italian Order of Business Consultants. In 1992 in fact the two Professional Orders determined jointly uniform list of fees and submitted the relative draft to the Ministry of Grace and Justice, Ministry of the Treasury and Ministry of Industry.
In its fact-finding investigation into Professional Orders recently concluded, the Authority mentioned the need to remove from present legislation professional service tariff fixing. Indeed, in this case, the two Orders above acted in such a way as to go beyond the legislative provisions.
Fees fixed by the Order of Business Consultants were approved by the Council of Ministers and enforced by Presidential Decree no. 645/1994, following the favourable opinion made by the Council of State. By contrast, the approval of the tariffs fixed by the Order of Accountants was delayed because of the unfavourable opinion expressed by the Council of State, which said that the different professional background of accountants had to led to the determination of lower fees.
However, the Order of Accountants did not modify the draft according to the indications of the Council of State and invited all its members to apply the new tariff, by publishing it in the association bulletin and sending circulars to the all Committees.
Subsequently, the new tariff was approved by Presidential Decree no. 100/1997 on accountants service.
The two Boards of the above Orders, by jointly implementing a uniform fee structure, reached an interprofessional agreement aimed at restricting competition even further than legislator did within each Professional Order. Such an agreement in fact aligned fees applied by professionals joining two different Orders.
In addition, the role played by the two Orders in elaborating fees went far beyond provisions of Presidential Decrees no. 1067/1953 and 1068/1953, which attributed to Professional Orders a mere functional participation in order to express their opinions on fee determination.
Lastly, the Order of Accountants, while awaiting for the Ministerial approval of tariffs, implemented the agreement with the Order of Business Consultants, by recommending its members to apply tariffs despite of the absence of such authorization.
On the basis of the above elements, the Authority felt that the conduct of the two Orders are allegedly violations of Section 2 of Law no. 287/90 and, in virtue of the qualitative and quantitative prominence of the professional categories involved in the market concerned, are likely to restrict substantially competition.