the Antitrust has opened a preliminary investigation regarding Italian Company of Navigation, Shipping Moby and Onorato



The Guarantor Authority of the Competition and Market (AGCM) has opened a preliminary investigation regarding Italian Company of Navigation (CIN), Shipping Moby and Onorato in order to assess eventual illicit conducts of the societies of the group Honored Shipping in the field of the marine transport of goods from and for the Sardinia, activity realized with ships ro-ro for the single transport of rotabili or with ships ro-pax for the transport of passengers and goods. Honored Shipping it has the exclusive control on the Moby societies and Italian Compagnia of Navigation, society - this last one - than in 2012 has acquired the branch of company of navigation of Tirrenia in the within of the procedure of privatization of the Tirrenia group.

The procedure started from the Authority Antitrust regards the hypothesis of an abuse of dominant position by Italian Company of Navigazione and Moby that would be put into effect, in violation of article 102 of the Treaty on the Operation of European Union (TFUE), hindering with several modalities the operativity of a concurrent society in this field and threatening the full competitive development of such services of marine transport. The Antitrust has communicated today that in order to assess these circumstances, in recent days the civil employees of the Authority has executed a series of inspections in the centers of the interested societies, parts of the procedure, let alone near a society of marine shipments, deductions in possession of useful elements to the aims of the assessment, with the aid of the special Nucleus Antitrust and the Special Nucleus Technological Swindles of the Customs corps.

The procedure follows relative signallings to presumed illicit behaviors places in being from CIN and Moby that are introduced at the beginning of this year to the AGCM from the two Trans societies Islands Srl and Logistic Nuova Lucianu Srl, assets in the offer of logistics services and transports between the peninsula and the Sardinia, and from the company of Grimaldi navigation Spa.del Euromed shipowning group Grimaldi.

The Authority Antitrust has specified that the denounced conducts would consist in numerous and unjustified refusals, opposite it is from CIN that give Moby, to embark means of the two societies of logistics and in the interruption of the commercial agreements elapsing between CIN and Moby and the two societies, with consequent and unjustified worsening of the terms of payment, in terms of modality and tempistica, of the carried out services of transport. The AGCM has specified that second signaling the discriminatory behaviors perpetrated from CIN and Moby to their damages would be the directed consequence of the choice of the two societies of logistics to transfer a part consisting of own traffics of goods on the ships of Grimaldi, new society entering on some routes from and for the Sardinia already operated by Moby and CIN. Moreover the AGCM has announced that Grimaldi, in particular, has evidenced that these behaviors would be clearly faces "to dissuade" the two operators using own services to the aim to exclude it from the market.

Moreover all signaling have denounced the presumed violation by CIN of the convention stipulated with the relative State to the obligations of public service to guarantee of the territorial continuity in transport between the greater peninsula and islands (Sicily and Sardinia) and minors. The convention previews, in the summery period and on some routes that assure volumes of traffic particularly elevated (Civitavecchia - Olbia, Genoa - Porto Torres and Naples - Palermo), the suspension of the tariff regime in order to allow with CIN to practice prices mainly oriented at the market. The annual fee that CIN receives in order to respect the terms of the convention is of 72,7 million euros.

At last, according to Grimaldi, the amount of the contributions distributed publics to CIN according to the convention would involve a meaningful sovra-compensation of the necessary costs for the accomplishment of the obligations of public service, that it would allow with CIN to place in being particularly aggressive a business policy (you in competition discount and promotions) on the routes with various operators by Moby, such to alter the game of the competition.

In the deliberation that gives start to the preliminary investigation the Antitrust remembers that the total dimension of the marine transport of passengers, motor vehicles and goods ro-ro from and for the Sardinia has been reduced of about 35% between 2009 and 2014 and that this has determined the escape from the market of some societies (new or historical), which SNAV and Sardinia Ferries (2011), Saremar (2012) and Go in Sardinia (2013). Moreover it remembers that CIN and Moby, historical operators of the market, maintain to assets some routes also in the winter period, is for the single transport of rotabili that for Shipping the mixed transport fleeting and goods and that Honored, by virtue of the exclusive control is on Moby who on CIN, is the group leader in the marine transport from and for the Sardinia, by virtue of quotas pairs to about the 80-90% regarding the passengers and the 80-90% regarding the goods.

The specific AGCM that also Grimaldi is an historically operating company in the market by virtue of the connections Salerno - Cagliari - Valencia (trisettimanale frequency) for the rotabili sun transport goods, Civitavecchia - Porto Torres - Barcelona (every day frequency) for rotabili passengers and goods recently restored and Genoa - Livorno - Cagliari - Palermo (inaugurated in September 2015, with four-week frequency) for rotabili sun goods. Moreover from 1°th January 2016 Grimaldi has begun to operate also the route Livorno - Olbia, in competition directed with Moby.