The Competition and Market Authority (AGCM) has inflicted a record maxi-sauce of 936.6 million euros in total to six among the main oil companies operating in Italy: Eni, it, IP, Q8, Saras and Tamoil. The accusation is to have manipulated fuel prices through an illegal agreement that has damaged consumers.
The investigation
The investigation started in March 2023 thanks to the anonymous report of a whistleblower. This term indicates who, from within a company or an organization, decides to denounce illegal or incorrect behavior of which he has become aware. It is a figure increasingly protected by European and Italian laws, precisely to allow to bring illegal or harmful practices to light without the risk of retaliation. In this case, the report has set in motion the investigation that led to the discovery of an illegal agreement between the oil companies.
The accusation, in practice, is to have created a sign on the “bio quota”. By law, each liter of fuel sold in Italy must contain a percentage of biocarbulator (the so -called “bio quota”), which has an additional cost. In a competitive market, each company should manage that cost independently, trying to be more efficient to offer better prices.
According to the Antitrust, between January 2020 and June 2023 the six companies have:
The result? Consumers had no real alternatives: regardless of the chosen distributor, the Bio component engraved on the final price in an almost identical way. In a few years the value has tripled: from about 20 €/mc in 2019 to 60 €/mc in 2023.
Fines
The antitrust survey was long and articulated. The authority first of all collected and analyzed a large amount of data and sector articles published between 2019 and 2023, looking for findings and signals of the alleged agreements. The hearings of the top management of the companies involved, in addition to a series of inspections in the locations of the companies and also at the editorial staff of the daily relay, the specialized newspaper that regularly published the values of the bio component have followed.
During the procedure, the companies tried to present voluntary commitments to close the case without reaching a fine, but the authority judged them insufficient and rejected them. Several consumers’ associations also took the field to support the AGCM action, including codes, Legambiente and the defense movement of the citizen, who played an important role in representing the interests of citizens damaged by the increases.
The sanctions deliberated by the AGCM affect the companies involved to a different extent:
They remain excluded from the iplom and repsol provision, for which sufficient elements have not emerged to demonstrate an involvement.
The measure concerns a crucial sector such as the fuel, where even a few cents per liter can have a significant impact on the expenses of families and businesses. According to the AGCM, the conduct of the companies has contributed to artificially high the prices at the pump, in a period already characterized by strong instability of the energy markets.
Eni’s reply
Eni immediately replied with an official note declaring that:
With regard to the sanction announced today by the Competition and Market Authority (AGCM), resulting from the procedure started over two years ago, Eni expresses the most firm dissent and the profound surprise for the conclusions of the Authority, which has deemed the company participating in an alleged restrictive intent of the competition between the main operating oil companies in Italy in the fuel sector for the autoration, as regards the cost of the bio component of the price component. fuel, introduced by the companies in traditional fuels to comply with regulatory obligations.
Despite the full collaboration and transparency ensured by Eni throughout the course of the investigation, the AGCM accusatory system is based on an artificial reconstruction that ignores the operating logic of the market and gave the reality of the facts, decontextualizing legitimate communications linked to mutual supply relationships between operators. The AGCM ignores the evidence that emerged during the investigation, which show how Eni and the other operators have always acted independently and often in misalignment, just as the assessments regarding the publication of prices in the sector printing is also unfounded, given that the information relating to the variation of the prices of the BIO component was already known to the market and therefore not able to condition the competitive dynamics.
It also announces that it will appeal:
Eni, therefore, as already done in the past in relation to the sanction already received for ascertained incorrect commercial practices precisely in relation to its biocarbiants (Diesel+case), definitively canceled by the Council of State after 5 years from its imposition, will protect its reasons and its image in every competent location with determination.
