FORENSICS PROFESSION: ANTITRUST AUTHORITY INFORMS GOVERNMENT AND PARLIAMENT - TEXT BEING DEBATED IN SENATE WOULD RESTRICT COMPETITION AND INCREASE COSTS FOR CITIZENS AND BUSINESSES
PRESS RELEASE
PRESS RELEASE
FORENSICS PROFESSION: ANTITRUST AUTHORITY INFORMS GOVERNMENT AND PARLIAMENT - TEXT BEING DEBATED IN SENATE WOULD RESTRICT COMPETITION AND INCREASE COSTS FOR CITIZENS AND BUSINESSES
Several elements in need of review: extension of the scope of exclusivity, new professional certification procedures, payment conditions, conflicts of interest and advertising.
A special sub-Committee of the Senate Justice Commission passed a series of forensics profession reforms that create serious market restrictions and impose unjustifiable burdens on both citizens and businesses.
The Autorità Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato provided written notice of these findings to the Government and Parliament. The primary concerns of the Antitrust Authority focus on provisions for extending the scope of exclusivity, new professional certification procedures, payment conditions, conflicts of interest and advertising.
'No' to the extension of exclusivity
The text being debated in the Senate calls for a significant expansion of the domain reserved for attorneys. Expanding exclusivity in this way makes no meaningful contribution to client interests, according to the Antitrust Authority, yet it does restrict inter-professional competition and exert a significant impact on administrative, settlement and extra-judicial costs with negative repercussions for citizens and businesses.
Fewer restrictions on professional certification
The draft law makes it more difficult to begin a career in forensics, thanks to new measures that obstruct and delimit the apprenticeship process and exclude any kind of compensation for apprentices. The position of the Antitrust Authority is that apprentices should instead be protected from all unjustified burdens and that apprenticeships should take place during university, which would then conclude with a professionally-certified degree. The duration of the apprenticeship should be reduced in any case, and measures should be introduced to reduce the compulsory costs for participants instead of raising them, as proposed in this bill. This would require scholarships and fellowships to be made available for ensuring equal access to the profession and call for the validation of apprenticeships with legal offices of businesses as well as independent authorities, public agencies and other institutions.
Fixing of maximum fees
The text under discussion sets minimum honorariums/fees and makes them binding and compulsory. According to the Antitrust Authority, the establishment of minimum, fixed fees fails to guarantee quality and acts as a restriction on competition. A more rational approach in terms of client interests, especially for natural persons and small enterprises, would be to establish maximum fees for serial types of services that are not particularly complex. The Antitrust Authority reasserted that the concept of decorum should only be used in the ways for which it was intended, not for the establishment of compensation levels.
'No' to the ban on comparative advertising
The reform bill proposes excessively restrictive general rules with respect to advertising by attorneys, especially where it prohibits comparative advertising.
Reduce conflicts of interest
The text magnifies the potential for conflicts of interest among attorneys by prohibiting self-employment or employment in any steady professional activity and providing for several exemptions and exceptions. The reason for minimizing conflicts of interest, according to the Antitrust Authority, is to prevent their being used to limit the number of forensics practitioners, which would increase the cost of forensics services as a consequence. Conflicts of interest among multiple professional activities could be handled through rules of professional conduct that require obligatory abstention in the presence of conflicts of interest.
Rome - 21 September, 2009