BLUGAS-SNAM
PRESS RELEASE
PRESS RELEASE
THE COMPETITION AUTHORITY HAS FOUND ENI S.p.A. LIABLE FOR ABUSE OF ITS DOMINANT POSITION ON THE GAS MARKET. MEASURES IMPOSED TO REMOVE BARRIERS TO COMPETITION: THE TRANSPORT NETWORK MUST BE UPGRADED
At its meeting on 21 November 2002 the Competition Authority resolved that Eni S.p.A. had abused its dominant position on the gas sales market through its subsidiary Divisione Gas e Power (formerly Snam) and had therefore ordered the company to remedy this situation by adopting appropriate measures to remove the entry barriers to other competitors.
The investigation began in October 2001. It revealed that the manner in which Eni had implemented the law setting antitrust ceilings (the Letta Decree) constituted an abuse of its dominant position in violation of Article 82 of the EC Treaty. This Italian provision obliged Eni to reduce the amount of gas sold in Italy to 75 per cent of national consumption beginning on 1 January 2002. The Authority had found that Eni had sold gas abroad to Italian operators from its own 'take or pay' contracts in sufficient volumes to ensure that until 2007 it would be able to keep the whole of the residual share reserved for the third operators under the Letta Decree. Eni had also given priority and long-term access to the National Gas Network (RNG), owned by its subsidiary Snam Rete Gas, to be used to transport its own gas to be sold abroad, giving a privileged position to the gas of its own customers-competitors, to the detriment of the independent operators.
As a result of this practice, a very high percentage of the gas transported through the RNG network and directly or indirectly placed on the Italian gas sales market was gas that actually belonging to Eni.
During the course of the investigation Eni expressed its readiness to upgrade the transport capacity of international gas pipelines in order to encourage new independent operators to enter the Italian market. The Authority considered that this might improve competition.
The Authority therefore gave Eni S.p.A. 90 days following the service of the order by which to supply detailed documentation on the appropriate measures it intended to adopt to remove the effects of this anti-competitive behaviour. These measures were to address in particular:
a) the envisaged upgrading of the Network's transport capacity;
b) the new conditions offered to any companies interested in using this upgraded Network.
Finding that the conduct of Eni had occurred in the absence of any specific regulation governing gas transport contracts for the national network, and while a number of transitional regulations were still in force, the Authority decided to impose a purely token fine on Eni of euro 1,000, consistently with Community case law in similar cases.
Rome, 7 December 2002