Stampa

GNV ADOPTS MEASURES TO PREVENT T-LINK FROM LEAVING MARKET


PRESS RELEASE



PRESS RELEASE

SEA TRANSPORT: GNV UNDERTAKES TO ADOPT IMMEDIATE MEASURES TO PREVENT NEW COMPETITOR T-LINK FROM POTENTIALLY LEAVING MARKET


In light of undertakings on the part of GNV, the Antitrust Authority has decided that there are no longer grounds for commencing provisional measures. These undertakings have been supplemented and made public by the Antitrust Authority to enable an appraisal on the part of the market.

GNV, Grandi Navi Veloci, has pledged to the Antitrust Authority that it will immediately put into effect a number of measures to prevent the possible exit from the market of its competitor T-Link operating on the Genoa-Palermo route.

The undertakings presented by GNV require:

that it adopt a grid of discounts based exclusively on volumes by single route;

2)        that it justify any particularly high discounts to the Antitrust Authority, in order to make any exclusionary commercial practices more difficult and expensive;

3)        that it not adopt measures, including those relating to payment conditions, which may directly or indirectly evade the measures regarding discounts;

4)        that it exclude penalisations from the economic conditions practised on routes other than the Genoa-Palermo route exclusively to the detriment of commercial customers making use of T-Link services on the Termini Imerese - Genoa Voltri route;

5)        that the use of additional ships on the Palermo-Genoa route by GNV be limited exclusively to proven cases of insufficient capacity on the ships already in use on said route.

The Antitrust Authority has determined that, in light of these undertakings, there is no longer the risk of serious, irreparable harm to competition arising from T-Link’s imminent exit from the market and therefore has decided not to undertake preliminary measures against GNV, an option that it had taken into consideration during the proceedings.

The measures described, supplemented by an additional undertaking to remove the presence of GNV on the board of Stazioni Marittime S.p.A., were presented by the company in order to bring to a close the investigation begun last 06 August to assess a potential abuse of dominant market position without the need for further ascertainment of violations.

The Antitrust Authority has decided to publish the undertakings in order to enable an appraisal on the part of the market: by 30 April 2010, the Antitrust Authority shall also take into consideration observations made by any other third parties concerned in order to ascertain whether they are sufficient to remove the anti-competitiveness profiles under investigation.

Rome, 07 December 2009