SCHOOLS: ANTITRUST AUTHORITY BEGINS MONITORING PRICES OF SCHOOL TEXTBOOKS TO CHECK EFFECTS OF INVESTIGATION COMPLETED IN APRIL
PRESS RELEASE
PRESS RELEASE
SCHOOLBOOKS: ANTITRUST AUTHORITY BEGINS MONITORING PRICES OF SCHOOL TEXTBOOKS TO CHECK EFFECTS OF INVESTIGATION COMPLETED IN APRIL
Spot checks to be made from Tuesday by Special Units of the Guardia di Finanza in bookshops in eight Italian cities to assess changes in the market following commitments presented by publishers and rendered binding by the Authority
The Italian Competition Authority has decided to begin monitoring the prices of school textbooks in order to determine the effects of an investigation which ended last April with the acceptance of commitments proposed by publishers.
Beginning next Tuesday, the checks are to be carried out on a sample basis by Special Units of the Guardia di Finanza at bookshops in eight Provincial capitals, without interfering with or slowing down normal business activities.
The editors must present compliance reports by December 2008. In the meantime, the aim of this exercise is to see whether the school textbook market is providing the expected benefits for families in terms of reduced prices and greater choice as a result of the commitments made by publishers and rendered obligatory by the Authority.
Most publishers undertook to use information technology to transfer part of their paper-based content to digital media so as to limit the number of printed pages and thus reduce production costs: a large proportion of the resulting savings, according to the commitments, was to be used to reduce cover prices for the benefit of consumers.
Rome, 21 August 2008