SHIPPING LINES CONNECTIONS WITH ISLANDS (Advisory opinion)
PRESS RELEASE
The Italian Competition Authority, under section 21 of the Competition Act, submitted an advisoryopinion to the Ministry of Transport and Navigation, in relation to the modes of assigning landing places for the shipping lines connections with islands.
The advisory opinion originated from a Naples Port Authority order of February 19th, 1997, ruling the assignment of the landing places for the connection services between Naples and Capri. This order provided that all the publicly subsidized services supplied by Caremar, a liner company controlled by Finmare Group, enjoyed priority landing whenever the contemporary landing of more shippers would not be occurred for place reasons.
The Authority said that such a provision was to be applied only to the connections which Caremar had to ensure at times and periods of weak offer, and not when services are also supplied by other liner companies.
Considering that public service was to be ensured at times and periods during which competitors did not offer connections so as to satisfy demand, the Authority did not find any lack of landing spaces in this case. Therefore the need to privilege a particular company with the assignment of landing spaces was deemed as unjustified and Naples Port Authority was ruled to remove its order.