AGCM

PRESS RELEASE

RAILWAY TRANSPORT:  ANTITRUST AUTHORITY LAUNCHES INVESTIGATION INTO FS AND RFI ABUSE OF MARKET DOMINANCE IN THE NATIONAL RAILWAY ACCESS MARKET

Proceedings undertaken following reports by Arenaways and consumer associations Altroconsumo and Codacons

During the meeting of 15 December 2010, the Autorità Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato decided to start an investigation on the railway company FS and its controlled company RFI (Italian Railway Network) to verify if they had abused market dominance in the national railway infrastructure access market, blocking entry of new candidate Arenaways.  On the basis of law, RFI is manager of the railway line and it must allow access to the railway structure to those who request it, on the basis of pre-defined rules and procedures and considering the saturation level of the network.
According to Antitrust Authority, which notified the company today of the investigation during some inspections, the procedure shall verify if the FS group, through its controlled company RFI, delayed and obstructed the entry of Arenaways into the Italian passenger transport market to favour Trenitalia, the controlled branch of FS, and in doing so damage the end consumer.
The contested dilatory behaviour, reported both by Arenaways and the consumer associations Altroconsumo and Codacons, began in 2008 when Arenaways presented a request to obtain the necessary general plans for the passenger transport service with stops at Alessandria, Voghera, Pavia, Milano, Novara, Vercelli, Santhià, Torino and Asti, and it continued during the whole assignment procedure of the general plans themselves.  The contract was stipulated only in November 2010, but exclusively for service on the Milan-Turin stretch, without intermediate stops.  This occurred following a decision by the Railway Service Regulatory Office (URSF) of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport which, following the request of RFI activated the programmed procedure to verify if the service requested by Arenaways could compromise the economic balance of the public service contract stipulated by Trenitalia with Piemonte and Lombardy.
According to the Antitrust Authority, RFI did not answer the repeated requests of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport until the outline assignment process had been completed, independently from the progress of the consultations that the company had started in 2008 with the interested Regions and leaving out the requests of Arenaways.  In particular, from May 2010, it would seem that RFI instrumentally subordinated assignment of the general plans to the decision of URSF with regard to the impact on the economic balance of the service contracts.
The investigation should end within 31 December 2011.

Rome, 21 December 2010