PRESS RELEASE

E-COUPONING: ANTITRUST AUTHORITY ACCEPTS GROUPALIA COMMITMENTS. PROTECTING THE CONSUMER WITH CLEARER INFORMATION AND ASSURED REFUND METHODS

The company will also carry out regular checks on its trading partners. Also accepted are the commitments of Liu Travel company, operating in the field of travel and tourism, which works in conjunction with Groupalia.

Consumers better protected in the e-couponing industry, the business of selling online coupons that entitle them to discounts if used within a certain period of time. The Antitrust Authority has in fact accepted and made binding the commitments proposed by Groupalia and its partner, Liu Travel, which operates in the field of travel and tourism, at the end of a procedure initiated to verify the existence of possible unfair commercial practices.

The investigation was launched by the Antitrust Authority following the more than 300 consumer reports and complaints received by the associations Cittadinanza Attiva and Nero su bianco. These showed, with reference to Groupalia: 1) advertising not truthful about the actual availability of the offers in the terms advertised, concerning the price and percentage of discount actually applied on the service provided by the partners and the contractual responsibilities of Groupalia to consumers; 2) late return or release of sums wrongly received or withheld from the availability of the customer in the case of transactions that did not go through, carried out by payment cards; 3) customer service lacking and inadequate. Authority offices then extended the investigation to the online travel agency, Liu Travel, which takes care of the 'travel' section for Groupalia through a special partnership agreement. In this department it emerged, among other things, that the particularly advantageous prices did not match, however, the final disbursement made by the consumer.

Based on the commitments of Groupalia, consumers on the website will now find clear and comprehensive information on the business offers, and the discounts advertised will be displayed only when it is possible to have an assured reference price. A Service Charter will also be published by which consumers holding coupons will be informed of their rights, particularly with regard to the submission of claims, requests for refunds (with the related timeframe for management) and customer service. Both Groupalia and Liu Travel undertake further to enhance their monitoring activities on their partners, with more checking before and after sales. This will allow the two companies to intervene quickly in a case of systematic or unjustified non-compliance, even partial, of their partners in providing the services and products purchased. Also, a blacklist will be compiled of the least reliable partners, which will no longer be allowed to publish campaigns on the website.

In the travel segment, thanks to the commitments of Liu Travel, consumers can check the availability of the offers over the holiday period in which they are interested before buying the coupon.

With regard to payments, the consumers are assured of set times for chargebacks of amounts paid for the purchase of coupons that did not go through.

Finally, the commitments of both parties guarantee consumers the opportunity to know, even before buying the coupon, the email and phone number (the costs of which are given) of the person to be contacted for complaints, refunds, and exercising after-sale guarantees.

Rome, 19^th December 2012