The Italian Competition Authority opened a proceeding into the four companies managing the radiotaxi service in Naples, namely Consortaxi, Taxi Napoli S.r.l., Radio Taxi Partenope S.c.a r.l. and Desa Radiotaxi S.r.l. Semplificata (known on the market as "La570"), whose services are used by more than 80% of taxi drivers in Naples. The investigation was launched further to reports filed by DigiTaxi S.rl. and Mytaxi Italia S.r.l for a possible anti-competitive agreement, in violation of Articles 101 of the TFEU and 2 of Law 287/90.

The investigation concerns a supposed anti-competitive agreement among the four Neapolitan radio-taxi operators intended to prevent competing platforms - such as DigiTaxi and Mytaxi – from entering the market for the provision of services for the collection and sorting of the demand for taxis in the Naples Municipality.

More specifically, the four operators allegedly established and adopted a common strategy prohibiting their own adhering drivers from using applications other than the one chosen by the operator itself. As a consequence, drivers were supposedly informed of the prohibition to use jointly the radio-taxi services and those offered by other innovative platforms and were forced to give up the latter, under penalty of cancellation of the radio-taxi service contract.

The alleged agreement appears to be aimed at maintaining the position held by each company on the market and creating a common front to prevent competitors operating according to an “open” platform model from entering the market.

The ICA simultaneously launched an interim proceeding to evaluate the possible adoption of an interim measure intended to stop the four companies from carrying on the alleged conducts, as they could lead to a risk of serious and irreparable damage to competition.

On 19 February 2019 ICA officials, supported by the Special Antitrust Unit of the Italian Guardia di Finanza, carried out dawn-raids at the premises of the companies parties to the proceeding, deemed in possession of useful elements for the purposes of the investigation.

Rome, 19 February 2019