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On 27 December 2016, the Italian Supreme Court published a decision through which it confirmed the conviction of the owner of the website www.agenziacalcio.it for defamation. The defamatory comment had first been posted by a user of the same website. The latter, in fact, posted a defamatory comment concerning “C.T.”, the person targeted by the statement, below an article on the website.  At the time, C.T. was President of the National Youth League of the Italian Football Association (“FIGC”) and he is currently serving as President of the FIGC. In order to corroborate his statement, the user sent...

By the judgment handed down on 15 November 2016 and published on 20 January 2017 (no. 1547/2017), the Italian Supreme Court (Joint Sections) has written the last chapter of the seven-year-old battle (see IRIS 2016-3/23) over the Regulation on the digital terrestrial television channel line-up (“LCN”), adopted in 2010 by the Italian Communication Authority (AGCOM) by resolution no. 366/2010/CONS. The saga that has (likely) ended up with such a decision began right after the approval of the LCN regulation, which was challenged by several local broadcasters who alleged that LCN positions had not been...

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...