REFORM OF LEGISLATION ON RETAIL DISTRIBUTION (Advisory opinion)
PRESS RELEASE
The Italian Competition Authority submitted to the Speakers of the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, the Prime Minister, the Ministers of Industry and the Department for the Public Function, the President of the Parliamentary Commission provided for by subsection 5 of Law no. 59/97, an advisory opinion on the draft legislative decree concerning the reform of legislation on retail distribution.
The Authority found that such a draft contributes positively to the implementation of a legislation on retail distribution, which is more consistent with competition principle, as well as with the spirit of liberalization and administrative simplification. The draft legislative decree in question provides, inter alia, that applications for opening, relocating and expanding outlets with a total sales surface smaller than 300,000 square mts are to be notified only to the territorial competent Municipality and can be carried out starting from thirty days of the date on which the application is filed. The Authority deemed that this proposal is one of the most crucial aspects of the reform and, as such, expressed the hope that it would not be amended.
Further, in the perspective of opening up competition, the provision on merging classified listings into two sectors (food and non-food) is also very relevant.
By contrast, other provisions of the draft decree could be amended, in order to remove unjustified obstacles to a proper functioning of the market and to attain a greater administrative simplification. To this end, the Authority suggested that such provisions would be enforced by the competent Regional and local administrations consistently with the objectives of liberalization and effective competition pursued by the reform.
As far as the transitional provisions of the draft above are concerned, certain amendments designed to remove unjustified restrictions on competition would be necessary. In particular, the Authority mentioned the need to set out provisions aimed at preventing an undetermined delay in examining the license applications concerning bigger outlets and not yet filed with the Regional administrations by January 16th, 1998, as well as the license applications which will be filed with Municipalities successively.
In respect of the transitional provisions on small retail outlets, the Authority deemed it necessary to reexamine the rule vesting the Regional administrations with the right to set the criteria - in relation to metropolitan areas as well as municipal areas that can be considered as a single user basin - by which Municipalities can subordinate, for a two-year period, the opening of small retail outlets to the assessment of their impact on local distribution.