Cinema, the Antitrust Authority opens an investigation into Anica, Anec and Anec Lazio: hypotheses to boycott the arenas

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Antitrust investigation into Anica, Anec and Anec Lazio for obstacles to the supply of films free of charge by the film arenas.

The authority has initiated an investigation against the National Association of Audiovisual and Multimedia Film Industries (Anica), the National Association of Cinema Operators (Anec) and the Lazio Regional Association of Cinema Operators (Anec Lazio), "to ascertain an alleged restrictive agreement, consisting of a concertation aimed at hindering the supply of films by arenas free of charge, in violation of article 101 of the Treaty on the functioning of the European Union or of article 2 of law 287 of 1990 ".

The Authority "assumes, at least from 2018 and until the 2020 season, the existence of a concerted action, referable to a substantial part of the Italian film industry, aimed at guiding the distribution companies or their intermediaries to deny the films to arenas free of charge, or in any case to make the release of releases subject to increasingly stringent conditions ".

Simultaneously with the start of the investigation, the Antitrust Authority "initiated a procedure aimed at adopting precautionary measures. From the documents it would in fact appear that, although the start of programming is now imminent, the organizers of the open-air cinemas in various parts of the national territory have obtained an extremely limited number of authorizations, such as to make the possibility of the demonstrations unlikely ". Compared to previous seasons, therefore," the hypothesized boycott has taken on characteristics that make the survival of this one doubtful typology of operators, making irreparable the damage deriving from the agreement itself "." Hence - underlines the authority - the need for a precautionary intervention that aims to promptly terminate the agreement. It is believed that the arenas free of charge constitute an important component of the cinema offer in the summer period and their suppression, or in any case it strong penalization would ultimately significantly damage the final consumer, especially in this moment of emergency and widespread economic crisis. "Antitrust officials" carried out inspections at the Anica, Anec and Anec Lazio offices to acquire documents useful for the purposes investigation ".