On February 7th 2018, in accordance to Law Decree n.9/2008 (Decreto Melandri), Lega Nazionale Professionisti Serie A (LNPA) notified to the Italian Competition Authority (ICA) the award of audiovisual rights for the Serie A 2018-2021 to Mediapro, a media rights selling agency (“intermediario indipendente”).

On March 14th 2018, ICA verified that the results and criteria adopted in the competitive procedure by LNPA are compliant to Law Decree n.9/2008. ICA noticed that the competitive procedure was reserved to media rights selling agencies, that are required to resell audiovisual rights in fair, transparent and non-discriminatory way.

ICA pointed out that Mediapro should act as a media rights selling agency (“intermediario indipendente”) avoiding any activity involving editorial responsibility, typical of a supplier of multimedia, contents in accordance to Law Decree n. 177/2005 and Law Decree n. 9/2008.

ICA also considers that it is necessary to guarantee to sub-licensee the broad editorial right to realize media products.

ICA has represented that, if LNPA and the Mediapro will not compliant with these indications regarding media agency selling activities, their behavior could be object of evaluation according to antitrust rules.

Rome, 15th March, 2018