AGCM

In its meeting of 7 February 2018, the Italian Competition Authority (“ICA”) resolved to initiate an investigation against TIM, Vodafone, Fastweb, Wind Tre and the Assotelecomunicazioni - Asstel trade association in breach of Art. 101 of the TFEU. The investigation aimed to verify whether these companies, also by the aforementioned trade association, had coordinated their commercial strategy into the frequency of renewal and billing of offers in fixed and mobile telecommunication services retail  markets, as modified by the introduction of new regulatory requirements. 

According to the preliminary hypothesis, the aforementioned coordination ultimately resulted in the adoption of almost identical methods of implementing the requirement introduced by Article 19- quinquiesdecies of Legislative Decree no. 148/2017 (converted by Law no 172/2017). The said article requires operators of electronic communication services to renew offers and bill the services provided on a monthly or multi-monthly basis. Indeed, Fastweb, TIM, Vodafone and Wind Tre communicated almost simultaneously to their customers that, to meet the requirement, offer and service billing would be carried out on a monthly basis and no longer every four weeks, together with their intention to consequently increase the monthly fee in order to distribute the total annual expenditure over 12 instead of 13 months.

The suspected coordination between TIM, Vodafone, Fastweb and Wind Tre has the alleged goal of preserving the increase in tariffs determined by the initial change in offer renewal frequency (from one month to four weeks), and, at the same time, of restricting the possibility for customers-consumers to benefit from fair competition between operators when exercising their right of withdrawal. To achieve these goals, the four operators allegedly arranged the change in the contractual conditions communicated to their customers in compliance with regulatory obligations. 

The starting decision does not exclude the possibility that the collusion amongst the telecommunication operators has occurred for a longer time and has a broader scope, going back to the introduction of the four-week renewal period and the increase in the single price of the services offered as a consequence.

Today, ICA officers have carried out inspections at the offices of the companies involved and at the premises of the trade association, with the help of the Special Antitrust Unit of Guardia di Finanza. 

The investigation will be completed by 31 March 2019.

Rome, 15 February 2018