Because the Automobile Club of Italy is going haywire
All the details on the investigation launched by the Antitrust into the Automobile Club of Italy-ACI
The Aci would take advantage of its dominant position in the organization of motoring events to the detriment of sports promotion bodies, amateur sports associations and car clubs. This is the reason why the Competition and Market Authority has started an investigation and carried out inspections at the offices of the Automobile Club d'Italia-Aci, Aci Sport SpA and Club Aci Storico together with the Special Antitrust Unit of the Guardia di Finanza .
Bad news for the top management of the body chaired by Angelo Sticchi Damiani (in the photo), who is also at the center of an investigation by the judiciary for an affair linked to emoluments.
THE ROLE OF THE ICA
The Automobil Club Italia is a public associative body, founded in 1905 to associate motorists and above all organize sporting events. Its members are the provincial and local Automobile Clubs which also constitute the Aci's branch in the area. Among the first founders of the FIA-Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile, which recognizes it as the only national authority in Italy for motor sport, the Aci is federated to the Italian National Olympic Committee (Coni), which recognizes it as the Federation Italian reference point for motor sport. Aci's in-house company is Aci Sport which mainly carries out promotion, communication and enhancement activities for competitions and championships. The Aci Storico Club is a non-profit association established in 2013 to promote and enhance the Italian motoring heritage and culture; joins the Aci which has the role of legal founding member of the association.
THE REPORTERS
As we learn from reading the opening provision, it was the Automobil Club Storico Italiano, a recognized non-commercial non-profit association which currently has 286 federated clubs and 57 member clubs (around 130 thousand enthusiasts of historic vehicles of collectible interest); the Abruzzo Drivers' Club, Club Officina Ferrarese del Motorismo Storico, Club Auto Moto Epoca Perugino, Aste e Bilanceri Automotoclub Città di Bitonto, Club Auto e Moto d'Epoca Francesco Santarelli; the Italian Sports and Social Associations of Sicily; Palatinus Motorsport, amateur sports association. To "obtain a more complete evidentiary framework on the facts reported", the Antitrust heard the whistleblowers who were also recipients of various requests for information.
THE DISPUTED CONDUCT
As mentioned, Aci is an operator in a dominant position in the organization of competitive motor sports events at a national level, thanks to the exclusive regulatory and coordination powers attributed by CONI. According to the Antitrust, Aci – also through Aci Sport SpA and Club Aci Storico – would adopt behaviors to hinder or prevent sports promotion bodies, amateur sports associations and car clubs from organizing non-competitive events and demonstrations to expand its position in this market and thus increase the number of its affiliates/members.
Aci's strategy, again according to the Agcm, would consist in sending reports to the bodies responsible for controls – i.e. Prefectures, Police Headquarters and municipal authorities – close to the start of the recreational-amateur events to communicate that these events would not be subjected to the prior opinion of the ACI which is not provided for by the relevant legislation. Furthermore, the Automobile Club would point out that the events would not take place according to the technical-sporting regulations. This "undue use of its regulatory and coordination powers", highlights the Authority, would have concerned numerous amateur motorsport events organized in various Italian regions, at least starting from 2016.
“Among the most significant cases, also for the subsequent judicial implications – we read in the opening provision -, the whistleblowers highlight the events connected to the letter sent by Aci on 9 September 2016 to the Prefecture of Trapani, the Police Headquarters, the Free Municipal Consortium of Trapani, to the Municipality of Trapani, to the General Secretary of CONI and to the President of the Sicily Regional Committee of CONI. In this regard, the Lazio Regional Administrative Court intervened with a decision to accept the appeal presented by the organizing club and by Asi (Automobil Club Storico Italiano, ed.) against the provision with which the Prefecture of Trapani had intervened on the initiative of Aci to block the organization of the event. This decision was also confirmed by the Council of State with Sentence no. 7451 of 2022, which in qualifying the event as non-competitive cites an international agreement signed between the FIA and the Federation Internationale des vehicules anciens from which the freedom of the organizer of historical regularity events of a non-competitive nature to be able to choose indiscriminately which federal regulation apply."
According to the whistleblowers, Aci's behavior would cause economic and image damage to the organizing bodies due to the "irrecoverable costs of organizing the event resulting from the continuous cancellation of the events and/or changes in location made" and the "loss of credibility , with a consequent and continuous decline in participation in the remaining organized events". Not to mention, the whistleblowers still maintain, that the damage caused by the suspension or cancellation of the events is also borne by the participants in the events, "damage which is also exacerbated by ACI's practice of sanctioning its members who took part in them" with the "clear aim of dissuading them from participating in similar future events".
In essence, Aci's objective – again for the whistleblowers – would be to bring non-competitive events back under its aegis, indirectly inducing sports promotion bodies and amateur sports associations to register them on the "Aci Sport Calendar", thus increasing its own revenues and also the costs of competitors.
ANTITRUST EVALUATIONS
According to the Authority led by Roberto Rustichelli, "the conduct implemented by Aci, aimed at extending its dominant position to the organization of recreational-amateur events, would be suitable to determine a general decrease in the number of recreational-amateur events, with a serious reputational and economic damage to the detriment of the organizing bodies. Furthermore, this conduct may induce sports promotion bodies and amateur sports associations to choose to co-organise, at generally higher costs, amateur events with Aci, which, in this way, achieves an increase in its related activities". Furthermore, these behaviors "could translate into a transfer of members to Aci from other bodies".
To all this, the Antitrust continues, we must add "the restrictive scope towards EPS and ASI members, who would see the number of events in which they can participate unduly reduced, as well as the dissuasive effect determined by Aci's conduct to sanction the pilots associated with it, with consequent potential absorption by ACI of the quota of participants/pilots who decide not to participate in events organized by the EPS/ASI, which are generally characterized by lower participation costs".
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/smartcity/automobile-club-italia-istruttoria-antitrust/ on Wed, 18 Oct 2023 12:27:25 +0000.