According to the Authority, the misleading conducts could concern the comparing activity in the consumer credit and motor TPL policies sectors. Today, Agcm officials carried out inspections at the premises of Facile.itS.p.A., Facile.it Broker di Assicurazioni S.p.A. and Prima Assicurazioni S.p.A., with the assistance of the Special Antitrust Unit of the Italian Finance Police.

The Italian Consumer and Competition Authority has opened an investigation into allegedly unfair commercial practices by the companies Facile.it S.p.A., Facile.it Broker di Assicurazioni S.p.A. and Facile.it Mediazione Creditizia S.p.A.

According to the Antitrust Authority, the companies may have implemented two distinct unfair commercial practices, violating the Consumer Code, in carrying out the comparing activity on theFacile.it. website.

This is, first of all, an alleged misleading conduct, linked to both personal loans and motor TPL policies, as the information provided to the consumer would not indicate or misleadingly indicate important elements for making an informed choice: for example, the economic conditions of the loans advertised on the comparator site, the probability of approval of any loan request, the criteria and methods of comparison and definition of the ranking of the offers being compared.

As regards Motor TPL policies, for some products it would not be indicated that these policies are based on the indirect compensation system, characterized by a less efficient service in the settlement phase. Furthermore, Facile.it would favour Prima Assicurazioni S.p.A.'s products to the detriment of other insurance intermediaries.

Secondly, according to the Authority, procedures aimed at soliciting the consumer to purchase an insurance policy initially envisaged as optional or specific loans at a stage in which the consumer has not yet decided which product to choose could be potentially aggressive.

Today, the Authority officials carried out these inspections at the premises of Facile.itS.p.A., Facile.it Broker di Assicurazioni S.p.A. and Prima Assicurazioni S.p.A., with the assistance of the Special Antitrust Unit of the Italian Finance Police in order to ascertain these conducts.

Rome, 9 February 2021