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INVESTIGATION INTO LOCAL PUBLIC TRANSPORT CONCLUDED: TEN MILLION EUROS IN FINES


PRESS RELEASE



PRESS RELEASE


 LOCAL PUBLIC TRANSPORT: ANTITRUST AUTHORITY FINES 15 COMPANIES OVER ANTI-COMPETITIVE ARRANGEMENTS IN BIDDING FOR CONTRACTS

Aim was to protect existing areas of influence, bypassing industry liberalization. Fines total almost 10 million Euros.

The Italian Competition Authority, at its meeting on 30 October 2007, decided to impose fines totalling around 10 million Euros on 15 important local public transport operators over anti-competitive arrangements.

The Authority concluded that the operators involved in the investigation set up nation-wide macro-groupings so as to coordinate their participation in the bidding process for local public transport contracts, with the explicit aim of limiting competition and protecting the traditional area of influence of the existing dominant operator in each geographic area. The goal of these accords was to ensure local public transport contracts were let to the existing operator or, in any case, to reduce competitive pressures between potential rivals when bidding for contracts outside their home territory.

The arrangements thus punished helped to negate the full realization of the process of liberalization in this industry in view of the contracting of local public transport services by way of open competition, which has been deferred to January 2008.

The investigation began in November 2005 to ascertain whether there were anti-competitive arrangements in the bidding for “additional services” in the City of Rome (approximately 20% of public transport in the Municipality): in the light of the results of that investigation, the proceedings were progressively extended to further possible agreements amongst numerous operators in the industry.

In the course of the investigation, the Authority took into consideration:

  • a compact by SITA, APM and CO.TR.I. to pilot their participation in the bids planned for Lazio and Abruzzo and, amongst these, the contract for “additional services” in the City of Rome;
  • the agreements reached within the alliances RETITALIA (representing around 180 million vehicle-km p.a.), TP NET (188 million vehicle-km p.a.) and 60 MC-Associazione 60 milioni di Km (about 47 million vehicle-km p.a.).
In the Authority's view, the RETITALIA, TP NET and 60 MC alliances demonstrate a clear attempt to limit competition, with the aim of avoiding the kind of comparison that, by way of tendering procedures, the 1997 reform was intended to introduce into the industry and that in the years 2002-2003 was seen as imminent. The bidding processes that took place and were examined during the investigation, particularly those in the areas of Savona, La Spezia and Mantua, led to the practically systematic confirmation of the incumbent companies, thanks to the effects of arrangements limiting comparison between potentially rival operators; these arrangements also made use of associazioni temporanee di impresa (ATI, or “temporary business associations”) that were clearly disproportionate to the size of the service to be managed. The expedient nature of these ATIs is confirmed by the basic indifference to the management of the areas contracted on the part of most of the members of the ATI, with the obvious exception of the incumbent operator whose business was thus reconfirmed.

The main result of the arrangement linking SITA, APM and COTRI was the letting of the contract for “additional services” in the City of Rome which involved the setting up of a temporary grouping in which the inclusion of SITA was not strictly necessary for the purposes of the bid. Its participation was the concrete manifestation of a broader arrangement aimed at orchestration in other geographic areas where contracting out of services might be expected and in which APM and SITA could have competed independently.

The following are the companies fined and the corresponding amounts:

SITA - Euro 248,800
CO.TR.I. - Euro 11,000
APM Perugia - Euro 930,000
ACTV Venice - Euro 1,551,200
G.T.T. Turin - Euro 1,904,000
TRANSDEV - Euro 136,000
ATCM Modena - Euro 275,776
TRAMBUS Rome - Euro 2,232,880
ATC Bologna - Euro 572,280
ATAF Florence - Euro 363,990
ATC La Spezia - Euro 424,830
ATP Genoa Tigullio - Euro 387,000
TEMPI Piacenza - Euro 274,380
TEP Parma - Euro 270,000
APAM Mantua - Euro 328,500

Rome, 8 November 2007