Milan, Cortina and parasitic marketing: all the companies fined by the Competition Authority

Antitrust fines totalling 2.5 million for parasitic marketing activities linked to the Milan-Cortina Olympics brand. This was revealed in a statement by the Italian Competition and Market Authority , which has concluded the proceedings initiated in January 2026 against the companies Harmont&Blaine, Rialto (the Il Gigante supermarket group), MD, Magazzini Gabrielli (the Oasi supermarkets), RetailPro (Pro7 supermarkets) and Butan Gas, finding breaches of the prohibition on ‘parasitic activities’.

The investigations were launched following monitoring activities carried out by the Special Anti-Trust Unit of the Guardia di Finanza, and the Authority exercised the powers conferred by Decree-Law No. 16/2020 (converted into Law No. 31/2020) concerning ‘ambush marketing’. In particular, the statement reads, ‘the Competition Authority has established that Harmont &Blaine S.p.A., Rialto S.p.A., MD S.p.A., Magazzini Gabrielli S.p.A., RetailPro S.p.A. and Butan Gas S.p.A. – whilst not being official sponsors of the Milan-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games – have established a link between their brands and the Olympics, thereby misleading the public as to the identity of the official sponsors’.

During the period in which the Olympic Games were held, in fact, ‘the companies’, as the Competition Authority points out, “carried out advertising campaigns and promotional activities in which the Olympic symbols (the five rings) and emblems, and/or official designations such as ‘Milan-Cortina/Milan-Cortina2026’, were frequently reproduced or referred to in various ways. These elements were found to constitute parasitic activity in breach of the prohibition laid down in Article 10 of Decree-Law No. 16/2020’.

Here are the amounts of the fines imposed on each company:

- Pro7 €550,000;
- Oasi €500,000;
- Harmont&Blaine €500,000;
- Butan Gas €350,000;
- Il Gigante €310,000;
- MD €300,000.