Antitrust opens investigation into Poste Italiane for obstacles to competition in the energy market

The Italian Antitrust Authority has opened an investigation against Poste Italiane to ascertain the existence of violations of Article 8, paragraph 2-quater of Law No. 287/1990. This was reported by the Garante del Mercato. According to this article, in fact, Poste Italiane is supposed to make its offices and postal network (of which it has the exclusive availability as provider of the universal postal service) accessible to competitors of its subsidiary PostePay, which uses them to market and to promote Poste Energia offers in the market for the retail sale of electricity.

According to some reports, Poste Italiane has instead failed to make such goods or services accessible to some of PostePay's competitors who have recently requested them. In this way, it would have given its subsidiary a significant competitive advantage, liable to irreparably alter the dynamics of competition in a singular market context - characterised by the end of the protected regimes in the supply of electricity and natural gas - in which active operators have strong incentives to attract customers from the protected regimes.