Search results : 399

On 23 December 2016, the Regional Administrative Tribunal for Lazio (TAR) annulled a decision of the Autorità Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato (Italian Competition Authority - AGCM), which imposed fines totalling EUR 66 million on the broadcasters Mediaset and Sky Italy, the Italian Football League (IFL) and the latter’s advisor Infront for rigging an auction for the assignment of the rights of TV Series A football for seasons from 2015 to 2018. On 19 April 2016, the AGCM found that Sky Italy, RTI/Mediaset, IFL and Infront had breached Article 101 TFEU on the prohibition of anticompetitive...

On 2 November 2016, with decision n. 424/16/CONS, the Italian Regulatory Authority for Telecommunication (Autorità per le garanzie nelle comunicazioni - AGCOM) approved a decision concerning “guidelines about the respect of human dignity and the principle of non-discrimination within news programmes, news outlets and entertainment programmes”. With this decision, AGCOM wants to issue interpretative criteria for the activity of broadcasting services monitoring, for which it has responsibility, and to interpret the application of articles 3, 32 paragraph 5 and 34 of the Italian Audiovisual and Radio...

On 26 November 2016 the new statute on cinema and audiovisual sector, called the “Franceschini Law” after the name of the current Minister of Cultural Heritage and Activities, has been published in the Official Journal of the Italian Republic. The Franceschini Law provides four key elements: first, the creation of a fund aimed at financing the cinema and audiovisual industry. Such a fund will be funded by a quote equal to the 11 percent of the VAT and IRES tax paid by the companies operating in the communications industry (in a broad sense). The amount of the fund will be no lower than EUR 400...

The Court of Rome handed down an interesting judgment in a case involving Reti Televisive Italiane S.p.A. (“RTI”) - the major Italian private broadcaster - and Gruppo Editoriale L’Espresso S.p.A. (“L’Espresso”) - an Italian publisher, which publishes, among other things, the online version of the national newspaper “La Repubblica” (“Repubblica”). Starting from 2012, several excerpts of RTI TV programmes have been published in a specific section of the website of Repubblica without the authorisation of the broadcaster. RTI then filed a legal action against L’Espresso. The plaintiff sought a declaratory...

On 4 August 2016, the Ministry of Economic Development (Ministero dello sviluppo economico - “MISE”) issued a decree which sets forth the contribution to be paid by digital terrestrial television network operators for the exploitation of frequencies (the “Decree”). The Decree has been published in the Official Journal on 21 September 2016, numbered 221. According to s. 208 of the Stability Law 2016, MISE is in charge of determining the amount of the contribution, to be paid by both national and local network operators. According to the law, such amount shall be determined in a transparent, non-discriminatory...