Fine ofAntitrust a Tim e Dazn. The Antitrust Authority fined Tim approximately 760 thousand euros and over 7 million Dazn for an agreement on football league tv rights of Serie A 2021-2024. This is what we read in a note. The agreement ended under scrutiny which, recalls the Agcm, provided for "exclusivity in favor of Tim and the prohibition of partnerships with its competitors in the telecommunications sector" and which "could have harmful effects on the competitive dynamics in act in the telecommunications sector in the markets for connectivity services and the retail sale of pay-television services". In simple words, Tim was able to offer valuable content together with its telephony services, a factor which was, on the other hand, precluded to others.
Fine for Tim and Dazn: what happened?
“By virtue of the agreement – explains the Agcm – Tim has marketed a bundle offer not replicable by its competitors, including the contents of TimVision and Dazn and the connectivity service. Furthermore, it was an offer likely to deprive Tim's competitors, active in the electronic communications markets, of the possibility of associating particularly valuable content with their own connectivity services, such as the rights to watch Serie A matches A for the three-year period 2021-2024, limiting the ability to exercise competitive pressure against Tim itself. Moreover, some clauses were suitable to limit Dazn's commercial options in relation to the development of audiovisual content offers on other technological platforms".
“The effects of the agreement, with particular reference to those deriving from the exclusivity, lasted about a month, as they were sterilized by the timely start of the investigative procedure by the Authority which took place on 6 July 2021. The simultaneous precautionary sub-proceeding, which took place close to the start of the first football season of the three-year period 2021-2024, in fact prevented the effects of the agreement from continuing, as in August 2021 Tim and Dazn have stopped applying the contested clauses”. In the note, the Authority recalls that, for the three-year period 2021-2024, following the tender called by the Football League in 2021, the holder of the TV rights is Dazn.
In this way, the note concludes, “all interested operators were allowed, including Sky, to conclude partnerships with Dazn and, therefore, to offer combined connectivity services and audiovisual content relating to the Serie A football championship".
