The two companies have kept on sending communications to enterprises and microenterprises asking them to check their corporate data, while in fact leading to their subscription of multi-year advertising services.

The Italian Competition Authority has found that Mulpor Company S.r.l. and IBCM - International Business Convention Management Ltd. repeatedly failed to comply with its decision of 6 February 2019 and fined them for 3.5 million.

As a matter of fact, the two companies have kept on sending enterprises and microenterprises communications with the same misleading content and a similar layout as those for which they were initially sanctioned back in 2019, and then again for non-compliance in 2021. These communications asked recipients to check their corporate data previously added to a database named the International Fairs Directory. The form is designed to be easily mistaken as serving to update the database for a fair event, while it actually entails signing up for a three-year offer to publish an advert on the Directory, at an annual cost of Euro 1,200.

The Authority has confirmed its findings according to which these communications are misleading for recipients in terms of the operator’s identity claims, as well as the nature and economic conditions of the advertised offer, leading enterprises and microenterprises to unknowingly subscribe unwanted services. The two companies, in particular IBCM International Business Convention Management Ltd, have exercised their undue influence by expecting to be paid for an unwanted service which was subscribed unknowingly, through repeated reminders and threats of costly international legal actions.

This is one of many interventions by the Authority against companies which adopt particularly deceptive behaviour vis-à-vis microenterprises, by sending communications that appear to request the confirmation of their corporate data, so as to be included in a database free of charge, while the real aim is that of making recipients subscribe costly multi-year advertising services.

Rome, 28 January 2025