Sanremo, Liguria TAR rejects entrustment. Rai: "Our ownership".
Administrative judges leave out the 2025 edition, then a public tender will have to be held. State TV objects: 'The ruling only concerns brands and ancillary services'.
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Key points
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The Sanremo Festival has been on everyone's lips for as long as it has existed. This time it even ends up in the mouth of administrative justice. The first section of the Regional Administrative Court for Liguria has declared illegitimate the direct awarding of the organisation of the Sanremo Festival for the years 2024/2025 to RAI by the Sanremo Municipality. The judges ruled that the municipality of Sanremo, subject to the next edition, will have to announce the entrustment of the festival with a tender open to operators in the sector. But, according to State TV, the decision only concerns the brand and some ancillary services, while the ownership of the kermesse remains with RAI.
JE's appeal
.The appeal before the Regional Administrative Court had been filed by JE - a music publishing and production company headed by Sergio Cerruti, chairman of the legal and institutional affairs committee of Afi and former president of Afi for six years - which had sent the Municipality of Sanremo an expression of interest "to acquire the ownership of the rights of economic and commercial exploitation of the Sanremo Festival (including the Red Carpet) and of the relative trademark to take care of the organisation and the holding of the Sanremo Festival and of the relative Red Carpet and the promotion and diffusion activities directly or indirectly connected to it".
The battle around management
.The Municipality - reads the decision of the Regional Administrative Court - 'did not respond' to the expression of interest. Therefore, 'following a meeting between representatives of today's applicant and the above-mentioned entity - during which the Municipality reportedly reported that no award had been made in favour of RAI with reference to future editions of the Festival' - JE challenged the provision, not known, by which the Municipality of Sanremo allegedly awarded RAI the exclusive use of the trademark 'Festival della Canzone Italiana' owned by the Municipality itself (which registered it in 2000), and the holding of the 74th edition of the Festival, as well as any subsequent editions.
The claim for compensation "for loss of chance"
."With the appeal, articulated in five grounds - continues the judgement - aimed at denouncing, under various profiles, multiple hypotheses of violation of law and excess of power resulting from the failure to initiate a public evidence procedure having as its object the concession of the exclusive use of the trademark and the organisation of the Festival, and accompanied by a precautionary petition aimed at obtaining the suspension of the execution of the contested acts", a claim for damages for loss of chance was formulated "in the event that the hoped-for acceptance had occurred after the 74th edition of the Festival had taken place".
Rai and the Municipality of Sanremo appeared before the Court and requested a declaration that the appeal was inadmissible, in so far as, "inter alia, the contested agreement (neither extended nor renewed), entered into on 16 December 2021, and the acts relating thereto (which are also challenged; among them, the resolution of the Municipal Council no. 310 of 3 December 2021, which approved the draft agreement relating to the 72nd and 73rd editions) do not concern the 74th edition of the Festival (to be held in 2024), but only the 72nd and 73rd editions of the Festival. 310 of 3 December 2021, which approved the draft agreement relating to the 72nd and 73rd editions) do not concern the 74th edition of the Festival (to be held in 2024), but only the 72nd and 73rd editions, both of which had already taken place at the time the appeal was filed'.
