Lo Cintioli & Associates firm – founded in 2012 by Prof. Avv. Fabio Cintioli, with offices in Rome, Milan and Brussels – obtained an important new ruling before the Lazio Regional Administrative Court on the subject of unfair commercial practices in the integrated water service management sector: canceled the two penalties imposed by the Antitrust on two companies of the Acea Group for a total of 2 million euro.
Specifically, the highly specialized legal boutique in the field of administrative law, competition and regulated markets has successfully assisted Acea Ato 2 and Gori in the proceedings before the Lazio Regional Administrative Court concerning two provisions with which the Competition Authority and del Mercato had ascertained the existence of various unfair commercial practices in the survey, calculation and invoicing of water consumption, as well as in the management of complaints sent by users and takeovers of defaulting users, imposing a fine on the two companies Acea Ato 2 (1,5 million) e Gori-Optimal management of water resources (500 thousand euros).
The Tar also affirmed some important principles on conduct that can be qualified by the AGCM as unfair commercial practices, clarifying that mere management inefficiencies detected by the AGCM cannot always be sanctioned as unfair commercial practices. In fact, the ruling recalls that management inefficiencies are elements that can be assessed by the public body entrusted with the service, can be the subject of a public class action or can be the subject of the supervision carried out by the sector Authority. Compared to mere management inefficiencies, AGCM's intervention is only possible in a residual way, ascertaining and demonstrating that they are suitable for limiting the consumer's freedom of choice.
