DISTRIBUZIONE DI STAMPA QUOTIDIANA E PERIODICA
PRESS RELEASE
PRESS RELEASE
The Antitrust Authority has opened an investigation into newspaper distribution
The Antitrust Authority has opened a fact-finding investigation into the distribution of the daily and periodical press.
In particular it will analyse:
- the actual effects of contracts which relieve wholesale and retail newspaper distributors of the risk of unsold newspapers, who are only paid for actual sales, in the light of the need to guarantee pluralism of information and an efficient sales network;
- the existence of territorially exclusive areas for wholesale distribution;
- the sharp increase in the number of episodes reported to the Authority of refusals by local distributors to supply new retailers. The retailers also complain of difficulties not only in obtaining supplies from the local distributor responsible for the area in which they operate, but also from wholesalers in bordering areas.
The investigation will also appraise the national collective contract between the publishers and newspaper and magazine retailers.
For the Authority, it is most important to analyse the way these aspects are linked, one purpose of which will be to see how the newspaper trade as it is presently organized can comply with the process of liberalizing newspaper retailing under the 31 March 1999 Act.
Rome, 13 April 1999