On 18 March 2025, following a complaint submitted through its whistleblowing platform, the Italian Competition Authority (“ICA”), announced the launch of an antitrust proceeding against Morellato S.p.A. (“Morellato”), a leading Italian jewellery and watch manufacturer that licenses prestigious brands such as Maserati and Trussardi, for an alleged violation of Article 101 TFEU.

Morellato pursues an omni-channel commercial strategy, consisting of maintaining a presence in all distribution channels, including (i) physical stores; (ii) authorised jewellery retailers; (iii) e-commerce and (iv) dematerialised stores on marketplaces.

The focus of the ICA’s investigation is Morellato’s selective distribution network, which provides for (i) a network of authorised distributors; (ii) a system of criteria for physical points of sale; (iii) a system of online sales by authorised distributors through their own online shops, and (iv) an absolute ban on the entire network of authorised distributors selling through marketplaces. 

In particular, the ICA intends to investigate one of these qualitative requirements adopted by Morellato: the prohibition of its authorised distributors from selling jewellery and watches on marketplaces where Morellato is instead actively present by carrying out sales activities for its own products. The preliminary findings of the investigation show that Morellato operates a virtual shop on Amazon, but denies its authorised distributors access to the same platform by assigning a unique code to each product that allows the uploading of items.

According to the Commission’s Guidelines on Vertical Restraints (2022/C 248/01) (“Guidelines”), agreements restricting the use of marketplaces may be acceptable and therefore lawful under Article 101 TFEU, provided that the agreement does not directly or indirectly prevent the buyer from effectively using the internet to sell the contract goods or services to particular territories or customers. 

However, as with any qualitative criteria set by the manufacturer in relation to its selective distribution system, they must not go beyond what is necessary to maintain the appeal of the brand and must be applied objectively and uniformly to all retailers.  

By contrast, Morellato actively uses the online marketplace from which it excludes its distributors and this inconsistency appears to have prompted the ICA to open the investigation, considering Morellato’s restriction:

• discriminatory, as it grants Morellato alone access to an online sales channel denied to authorised distributors;
• disproportionate, as it does not preserve the product’s image; and
• unjustified by quality standards, given that Morellato itself relies on those digital platforms.

Therefore, according to the ICA’s allegations, the described commercial conditions are likely to constitute an anticompetitive agreement prohibited by Article 101 TFEU as they potentially impede authorised distributors’ effective use of the internet as a sales channel.

In this investigation, the ICA is applying the principles first laid down by the European Court of Justice (in the Coty and Metro judgments) - which preceded and paved the way for the current provisions of the Guidelines, including the formal adoption of the provision on restrictions on the use of online marketplaces.

It will now be up to the company, in the course of the proceeding, to rebut the presumptions based on the above-mentioned principles and to demonstrate the grounds of efficiency and reasonableness that could in any event exempt such a provision from the application of Article 101 TFEU.

The ICA decision (in Italian only) is available at the following link.

The ICA press release (in English) is available at the following link.

For more information, please contact Federico Marini Balestra, Lucia Antonazzi and Bianca Maria Gorlero. 

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