Una fine of 7 million euros against Sky. This was decided by the Antitrust which communicates that it has closed the investigation launched against Sky Italia. Two violations of the Consumer Code ascertained by the Competition Authority.
According to Antitrust, Sky would not have provided customers, old and new, with clear information on the content of the Football pack for the 2018/2019 season, suggesting that nothing had changed compared to the previous season and that subscribers could continue to watch all the Serie A and Serie B matches as before.
As is well known, however, this is no longer the case this year. Three Serie A championship matches and all Serie B matches are visible on Dazn and Sky subscribers, in order to see them, are forced to contract a new subscription with the Perform streaming platform, paying 9,99 euros per month more, or they have the option of integrating the Dazn app directly into their package, paying an extra 7,99 euros per month. On the contrary, although the number of visible games has dropped significantly, the price of the subscription has remained the same.
"The football-loving consumer - explains the Antitrust in a note - in the absence of information that would convey immediately and with due relevance the contents of the offer and in particular the limitations on the number of games available (7 out of 10 for each day of championship), could easily have fallen into the error of consider the entire Serie A football championship included in the Sky Calcio package, thus assuming a decision of a commercial nature that it would not otherwise have taken, i.e. the activation of the subscription to this service for the 2018/19 football season".
The second violation ascertained by the Authority instead concerns the exercise by Sky of an aggressive practice which would have led to a "undue influence” towards Sky Calcio subscribers. The latter had to suffer a 30% reduction in Serie A matches visible on satellite TV and the cancellation of the entire Serie B tournament without "being able to freely make a decision on whether or not to keep the package".
Not only. “The subscribers to this service – continues the Antitrust – have been forced to choose between two possibilities, both disadvantageous, i.e. the continuation of the charges, inter alia to an unchanged extent, despite the different and reduced content of the package compared to the one originally chosen, or the withdrawal from the contract for consideration, with the payment of penalties and/or the loss of discounts and promotions connected to offers with a minimum duration constraint".
These are the reasons that prompted the Competition Authority to impose a hefty 7 million euro fine on Sky.
