In 2020, during the first Covid emergency, league and cup matches stopped, but Sky has not refunded customers holding the "Football" and "Sport" packages. Which therefore - despite not having anything new to look at - continued to pay as usual. For this reason theAntitrust has sanctioned satellite tv with a fine of two million euros.
"Sky has not recognized, in the face of the Covid 19 health emergency and the consequent suspension of the live broadcast of sports competitions, the remodulation or automatic reimbursement of the monthly package fees, from the moment in which the live sports events were suspended and until their recovery”, reads in an article of the Authority.
But that's not all: the Antitrust contests Sky's work on two other fronts as well. The second "deceptive commercial practice" concerns the "Coronavirus discount”, based on which it is possible to obtain a price reduction on the “Sky Calcio” and “Sky Sport” packages starting from the moment of joining. Indeed, the company has omitted or provided information in an inadequate and untimely manner regarding the existence of the discount - continues the note - as well as on the methods and times for requesting it, with a consequent economic disadvantage".
Finally, the Antitrust underlines that it has ascertained "the unfairness of a third aggressive commercial practice, as Sky has imposed onerous and disproportionate obstacles the use of the "Coronavirus Discount" by the customers concerned".
In particular, the company allowed customers to join the offer only through an online procedure, which however often did not work, making the request particularly complicated. The discount, however, was not granted to those who had canceled the season ticket before the outbreak of the pandemic.
The Consumer Protection department of the Antitrust, led by Giovanni Calabrò, is also engaged on many other fronts. One of them is insurance. The issue of transparency of contracts is supervised by IVASS but the Antitrust also has a say. And this is why today Calabrò will participate in the Sapienza Webinar in Rome dedicated to "Consent, form and transparency from the age of emergency to the age of Covid", together with experts from the world of credit and insurance. Non-transparent clauses are always lurking.
