AGCM

PRESS RELEASE

ANTITRUST AUTHORITY LAUNCHES INVESTIGATION INTO MAIN FASHION COMPANIES

Pursuant to feedback received, the Antitrust Authority has launched investigation proceedings against the main fashion companies operating in Italy, as well as their sector association.

More particularly, the proceedings aim at ascertaining whether such companies have concluded an agreement, in breach of European legislation for the protection of competition, which has as its goal a coordination of the respective commercial conduct – at least since March 2010 – as regards both the economic and contractual terms applied to clients and the terms of affiliation and management of the female (and male) models themselves.

Such coordination is said to have been actualized thanks to an intense exchange of sensitive information between the companies cited in the proceedings, both within the context of the sector association and outside it.

The proceedings will be completed by 31 October 2016.

Rome, 26 March 2015