Competition law: who is Valentino? A competition expert, now putting the Big Tech firms to the test
A member of the Competition Authority since 2023, he has now been promoted internally
Having joined the organisation on 13 June 2023, Saverio Valentino has been promoted from within to take up the post of President of the Antitrust Authority. The appointment by the Presidents of the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, Ignazio La Russa and Lorenzo Fontana, marks the start of the Roman lawyer’s second term at the institution responsible for ensuring fair competition in the markets.
With the bill having passed through both Houses, any doubts regarding the possible ‘promotion’ of a member already in office (in this case, for over three years) appear to have been dispelled. These doubts were also linked to the maximum term of office, which is, in any case, seven years.
Valentino was nominated by Fratelli d’Italia as part of the general agreement on appointments which also led to the appointment of Guido Stazi as chairman of Consob, with the approval of Forza Italia. Born in 1971, Valentino is a lawyer specialising in Italian and European competition law. He is the son of the Calabrian criminal lawyer Giuseppe Valentino, who served as a Member of Parliament for Alleanza Nazionale and the Popolo della Libertà from 2006 to 2013 and as Under-Secretary of State for Justice in the second and third Berlusconi governments.
After graduating in law from Sapienza University, Valentino went on to complete a Master’s degree in European Union law at the College of Europe in Bruges and a Master’s degree in law at the University of Chicago Law School. He then gained experience at the European Commission’s Directorate-General I, in the unit responsible for multilateral trade policy. The author of various publications on the role and functions of the Competition Authority, Valentino will now be tasked with continuing the work of the Authority, which in recent years has focused heavily on mechanisms of market abuse in technology markets by large platforms.
Among the immediate tasks is the publication of the new report to the government and Parliament on the annual competition bill. The delay in the appointment (the term of office of the predecessor, Roberto Rustichelli, expired on 6 May) risks meaning that this year the report will only be published after the draft bill has been submitted to the Council of Ministers (a draft, prepared by the Ministry of Enterprise and Made in Italy, is, in fact, already ready). At that point, the Competition Authority’s recommendations would still prove useful ahead of the parliamentary scrutiny.
