PRESS RELEASE

A SURVEY BY THE ANTITRUST ON THE DAIRY CHAIN

The Italian Competition Authority (ICA) has decided to launch a survey on the dairy chain. The aim is to deepen four aspects in particular: 1) the contractual dynamics with which the conditions of purchase and sale both of raw milk to the stable as well as final products; 2) the mechanisms of price transmission along the chain; 3) the significance both under the antitrust law and under Article 62 of Delegated Legislation number 1/2012, of the conduct adopted by the operators in the negotiations of the conditions of purchase; 4) the actual level of competition existing between operators active in the several vertically-related markets in the product-distribution cycle.

The Antitrust survey comes at a time of great changes in the dairy sector, even due to the definitive dismantling of the Community system of milk quotas.  In this context, the farmers associations complain of a lack of correlation between the evolution of the consumer prices of dairy products and the price paid to farmers for the domestic sale of raw milk that has experienced a drastic decline in recent months.  Even from a legal view there were important changes both a community level (Regulation number 261/2012 or so-called milk package, effective from 2 April 2013) and at national level (an urgent law decree for the revival of the agricultural sectors in crisis, that contain specific measures to protect the milk chain, of 29 April 2015).

Rome, 6 May 2015