Italy: A Competition/European Law Overview

Competition law enforcement in Italy combines robust public enforcement activity by the Italian Competition Authority (ICA) with a steadily maturing private enforcement landscape. In recent years, the ICA has imposed high penalties for cartel and abuse of dominance infringements and set out clear enforcement priorities, including initiating complex digital-platform cases and carrying out active advocacy to safeguard competitive neutrality in public procurement and concessions. Meanwhile, private enforcement litigation before Italy’s national courts has continued to grow, with the courts being asked to decide on issues including refinements to limitation rules, the timing of claims, the scope of presumptions and the role of expert evidence.

Public Enforcement: Outcomes, Priorities and Notable Cases

The robustness of the ICA’s public enforcement is demonstrated by the sheer scale of its fining activity. In 2025 alone, the ICA imposed approximately EUR1.397 billion in fines for cartels and abuse of dominance infringements (ICA Annual Report 2025, pp 33–34).

Digital markets represent a key priority area for the ICA, sending a clear message to businesses operating digital platforms or relying on them as distribution channels. This is shown by the ICA’s fine against Apple in December 2025 for alleged abuse of dominance in the market for the supply to developers of platforms for the online distribution of apps to users of the iOS operating system (approximately EUR100 million), and by its ongoing investigation into Meta for alleged exclusionary conduct linked to WhatsApp and AI services. In addition, the ICA has formalised its co-operation with the European Commission in this field through a memorandum of understanding and seconding staff to the Commission’s Digital Markets Act team.

The ICA is also using its consumer protection powers to investigate alleged unfair commercial practices related to the green transition and sustainability issues. In particular, the ICA has focused on conduct that could cause harm to consumers, such as alleged misleading green claims, greenwashing or unsubstantiated ethical sourcing claims. This trend is also confirmed by the ICA’s activity in addressing AI-driven risks, such as chatbot “hallucinations” or opaque data monetisation by social media platforms. Companies should therefore expect increasing scrutiny of the accuracy and completeness of their environmental and ethical claims, under both antitrust and consumer protection law.

In more “traditional” markets, the ICA has also focused on investigating conduct that allegedly exploited regulatory instruments as levers to coordinate cartels (see the EUR936 million fine for a cartel in the fuel sector and the EUR 70 million fine in the market for the sale of cast-iron).

Public Procurement and Concessions: A Rising Enforcement Priority

One of the most significant and relevant trends in practice for businesses operating in Italy is the ICA’s advocacy activity to safeguard competitive neutrality in public procurement and concessions. Unlike most EU competition authorities, the ICA has a specific statutory power to review tender documents and concession terms, and to issue formal opinions and recommendations regarding these.

In public procurement, the ICA has focused on whether tender rules may restrict competition at different stages of the procedure. In 2025, the ICA flagged a helicopter rescue tender in the Autonomous Province of Bolzano that specified a particular aircraft model, potentially favouring a single manufacturer in breach of the principles of non-discrimination and proportionality under Italy’s Public Contracts Code (Legislative Decree 36/2023). In postal services, two separate ICA interventions challenged the lack of lot division, disproportionate participation requirements and excessively high technical-offer thresholds in tenders for payment-notice delivery and for a digital notification platform (SEND), which the ICA considered could disadvantage smaller operators.

With regard to concessions, the ICA has raised concerns about automatic extensions or renewals of concessions granted without competitive procedures, as well as allegedly excessive concession durations and disputed in-house renewals. For instance, in 2025 the ICA issued 18 reasoned opinions and two formal recommendations on maritime concessions for tourism and recreation, challenging municipalities and regions that extended or renewed concessions without competitive procedures contrary to EU principles governing scarce public resources.

In practice, these interventions shape how tenders are designed and the terms on which incumbents and new entrants compete. On a separate but related point, the ICA’s legality rating system recorded 10,697 filings in 2025, an 18% increase from the previous year, signalling broader adoption by businesses (ICA Annual Report, p131). The rating system – intended to promote the adoption of ethical corporate standards by companies – includes eligibility requirements and reputational implications, and companies should therefore assess any relevant impacts regarding key parameters for tenders or concessions and reflect these in their bidding and compliance strategies.

Private Enforcement: Key Developments and Open Issues

Over recent years, Italian antitrust damages litigation has consistently grown, with more than 170 follow-on judgments between 2013 and 2025 across trial and appellate levels (data collected from the ITA.CA database – Italian Cases on Private Antitrust Enforcement).

This trend, which is likely to continue, has been driven by increasing follow-on litigation (ie, claims for damages where a relevant competition authority has already established the competition law infringement), after Italy implemented Directive 2014/104/EU (the “EU Directive on Antitrust Damages Actions”) through Legislative Decree 3/2017. Legislative Decree 3/2017 introduced certain rules designed to make it easier for claimants to bring follow-onclaims (in particular) for antitrust damages before the Italian courts, such as the rebuttable presumption that cartels cause harm, which shifted a key evidentiary burden onto defendants, and broadening the tools available to claimants.

In practical terms, this means businesses found to have participated in anti-competitive conduct face a significantly higher risk of follow-on damages claims in Italy than they did a decade ago. Nonetheless, there are still areas of complexity and uncertainty regarding such litigation, such as regarding the rules on limitation periods, where core aspects are still being refined by the Italian and EU courts (including, for instance, when the clock starts to run, how regulatory investigations suspend the limitation period and how transitional provisions apply to older infringements).

Therefore, while Directive 2014/104/EU and Legislative Decree 3/2017 have significantly reshaped private antitrust enforcement in Italy, Italy’s courts, also closely applying EU-level case law, are still progressively shaping the contours of antitrust damages litigation, and thereby directly contributing to its expected further growth in the future.