Antitrust / State Aid

Antitrust and competition law has rapidly gained in importance over the last few years at European and national level. Antitrust infringements are frequently prosecuted with exorbitant fines threatening companies' existence. Therefore, risks of antitrust and competition law have to be taken seriously and suitable compliance matters should be set into place in advance. In this framework we assist you in checking compliance of the various contractual operations with national and European antitrust legislation.

We further assist you in handling the industrial relations to your Italian suppliers with regard to the Italian law 192/98 on industrial subsupply which aims at providing a particular protection of subsuppliers and to prevent (and to sanction) situations of abuse of a dominant economic position.

The focus areas of our activity

• Merger control
• Drafting of contracts, in particular in the areas of

Horizontal cooperation agreements between competitors with particular regard to R&D, specialisation, license and technology transfer agreements

vertical agreements (e.g. agency agreements, dealer and franchise agreements, selective distribution systems, supply agreements)

• Abuse of dominance
• Abuse of a dominant economic position, industrial subsupply in accordance with law 192/98