PRESS RELEASE

PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATIONS: ANTITRUST LAUNCHES AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE FEDERATION OF PHYSICIANS AND DENTISTS REGARDING AN AGREEMENT THAT COULD POSSIBLY RESTICT COMPETITION

According to many reports by individual professionals and by groups of dental surgeries and a complaint by Groupon, the enforcement of the code of conduct would limit the right of individual professionals to promote their services.

At its meeting on 03^rd September 2013, the Autorità Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato decided to launch an investigation into whether the National Federation of Physicians and Dentists (Fnomceo), by means of the provisions of the Code of Conduct and the application guidelines, unjustifiably restricted recourse to advertising by individual professionals and networks of dental surgeries in breach of EU rules on practices that are restrictive of competition.

According to the Antitrust Authority, the rules on advertising that appear in the Code of Conduct and in the guidelines issued by Fnomceo where failure to comply renders individual professionals subject to the risk of disciplinary proceedings, may unduly limit the use of advertising by physicians. The Code in fact envisages: a) a complete ban on promotional advertising which was used, according to some complaints that reached the Authority, to challenge the use of specific means of distribution or messages that focus on the particular price advantage of these services; b) a ban on comparative advertising; c) restrictions on advertisements containing tariffs; d) prior verification by the Associations of compliance with the rules of conduct of the advertising message that they intend to publicize.

According to the Antitrust Authority, limitations on advertising may have restrictive effects on competition because they would limit the use by individual practitioners and group practices of an important competitive lever.

Behind the measure there were numerous reports coming from individual professionals and companies that manage dental clinics which claimed that resort to advertising would be widely hampered by the relative provision in Article 56 of the Code of Conduct and by the application of a highly restrictive notion, in this context, of the concept of “professional decorum”. The report submitted by the company Groupon Spa complains instead that several regional bodies had, moreover, exercised forms of pressure on doctors who advertise their professional activity by means of the services of Groupon, resulting in the cancellation of contracts.

Rome, 13^th September 2013