AGCM

New structure includes 9 departments and 25 directorates. The Board of the Authority has appointed 22 women and 21 men as manager of the various organisational units.

The new organisation of the offices of the Italian Competition Authority has been operational for some days (https://en.agcm.it/en/about-us/organization/organization-chart). It is a completely new organisational structure based on nine departments, of which two strictly focus on antitrust matters. The first one will deal with cartels and digital platforms, the second one with all the other sectors of the economy; consumer protection will be entrusted to two departments, with sectoral competencies which are symmetrical to those in competition matters. In addition, the Legal Affairs Department, which will attend to procedural guarantees, litigation and legal research, and the Economic and Market Analysis Department, which will ensure economic analysis and fact-finding inquiries, will provide all departments with the assistance of lawyers and economists for their antitrust and consumer protection investigations. With the establishment of the Procedural Guarantees Directorate, the Authority intends not only to increase procedural guarantees, but also to strengthen the adversarial principle and right of defence, as well as to make the administrative action more effective and efficient.

Then a Compliance Department has been established, which will lay down the procedures for assigning the legality rating to companies and those relating to conflicts of interest in government assignments, as well as a Department for IT Services and Digitization, which will provide IT support for the complete dematerialisation of all the Authority’s activities, including IT inspections at the companies under investigation. Finally, the Administration Department will attend to the financial statements, contracts and personnel management. All departments will be divided into directorates and offices.

Furthermore, the following have been established: a Directorate for Institutional Relations, External Relations, Communication and Press, a Directorate for International Relations and Relations with the European Union, a Directorate for Corruption Prevention and Transparency, a Directorate for Cybersecurity, a Secretarial and Coordination Directorate and a Strategic Evaluation and Control Body.

On a proposal by the Secretary General, the Board of the Authority has appointed 22 women and 21 men as manager of the various organisational units.

Chairman Roberto Rustichelli said upon the launch of the reorganisation: “The protection of competition and consumers entrusted by the legislator to our Authority is an essential task for the development of companies and for the welfare of citizens, a task that requires consideration of the evolution of the economic system and the innovative processes that have an impact on the economy and society at a global level. Our new organisational structure has the ambition to keep up with these new times, in order to improve the quality and effectiveness of our work, our procedures, our decisions, also through a strong and positive interaction among departments, directorates and offices, while ensuring all appropriate guarantees to the parties in proceedings. The aim is to offer the Board ever greater accuracy, timeliness and quality of information on which to found debates and decisions on cases. The Authority, whilst preserving its independence, is committed to finding balanced solutions and to providing loyal cooperation to the Parliament, the Government and all Italian and European institutions”.

 Rome, 10 January 2023