Autorità Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato
Addition, the Authority garante della concorrenza e del mercato, also known as antitrust or AGCM, the national competition authority of Italy. It was with Act No. 287/1990 (Legge a tutela della concorrenza e del mercato italiana ) founded and took exactly one century after the Sherman Antitrust Act (USA) on their work. The impetus for its creation came from the European Community ( now the EU).
This can be seen also that the products were 101 and 102 of the Treaty establishing the European Community (1957, known in Italy as ' Trattati di Roma ' ( Treaty of Rome ) or ' TFUE ') translated almost literally into Italian; as well as the principi del Regolamento CEE sulle concentrazioni tra imprese (n. 2059/1993 ) (about: principles of the EC Regulation on the control of concentrations between undertakings ).
In addition, Article 1 of Law n 287/1990 the rare (perhaps even unique in Italy ) regulation that the interpretation of the law is carried out according to the principles of Community law. A similar provision is included in the Competition Act 1999 of the United Kingdom.
Tasks
The Authority has the following tasks:
- Preventing the abuse of a dominant position;
- Monitoring of agreements and / or cartels that affect free competition;
- Control of corporate mergers or acquisitions that exceed a certain value;
- Consumer protection in the field of unfair trade practices and unfair and misleading advertising;
- Assessment and sanctioning of cases of conflicts of interest with the government members.
Powers
The Authority may conduct investigations or fact-finding investigations. This can lead to warnings, fines or other administrative penalty. In cases of alleged infringements of the competition rules, the fines can be up to 10 percent of sales. In the case of violations of the law to protect consumers, the Authority may impose fines of up to € 500,000. If the Authority considers a situation for particularly urgent, it can take for the protection of the general public other interim measures. The Competition Authority may have in their investigations of the Guardia di Finanza. Countermeasures by the authority may before the competent administrative court (TAR) will be appealed.
Other Features
The antitrust authority shall submit to the Italian Prime Minister an annual report on the application of competition law in Italy. In addition, the authority may issue opinions on legal standards on the market regulation. The AGCM can report to Parliament, the Government and local authorities any distortion. Together with the other authorities of the European Union is the ACGM part of the " EU competition authorities ." This will have the opportunity to consult directly with the European Commission on the basis of EC Regulation 1/2003.