Lear is assisting a leading operator active in the telecommunication sector which participated to a tender aimed to secure suppliers of cloud services for Italian public organizations. The tender required Lear’s client to partner up with a cloud services provider, which decided to withdraw from the agreement shortly after Lear’s client’s bid was declared successful. This breach of contract resulted in Lear’s client being excluded from the tender. Lear is currently estimating the impact of the breach of contract and the amount of damages that its client is suffering.

Lear assisted one of the main distributors in the Italian electricity market in developing defensive strategies apt to rebut the accusations of abuse of dominance made by three different companies active in the retail electricity market. In three of these cases, Lear assisted its client in developing a defensive strategy against the competitors’ accusation regarding alleged illegal and oppressive requests, which eventually allegedly put the competitor in financial distress or even drove it out of the market. Continue reading Damages estimation for alleged abuse of dominance in the market for electricity distribution →

Lear has assisted a leading Italian telecom operator in claiming potential damages resulting from the anticipated resolution of a contract for the online distribution of football matches, and from discrimination in promotion efforts, as its counterpart – the exclusive rights holder, a web platform itself – decided to partner with the Italian telecom incumbent under exclusivity clauses in the football audio-visual rights market. Lear economists have been involved in the early-stage proceedings in ascertaining the extent of the discrimination that the telecom operator would be subjected to in the ultrabroadband market.

Lear assisted one of the main distributors in the Italian electricity market in developing defensive strategies apt to rebut the accusations of abuse of dominance made by three different companies active in the retail electricity market. In two of thesecases, Lear assisted its client in developing a defensive strategy against the competitors’ accusation regarding alleged illegal and oppressive requests, which eventually allegedly drove the competitor out of the market. Lear’s defensive strategy was based on the proof that not only were these requests legal by contractual terms, but also that the competitors were in such a poor economic and financial condition that they would have gone bankrupt anyway. Continue reading Damages estimation for alleged abuse of dominance in the market for electricity distribution →

Lear is assisting the shareholder of a wholesale operator in the market of FTTH (Fiber To The Home) network in a damages action, initially promoted by its subsidiary, against the Italian incumbent operator for wholesale and retail fixed access TIM. The latter has been sanctioned in 2020 by the Italian Competition Authority for exclusionary conduct aimed at raising barriers to the new entrant.  The anticompetitive strategy that TIM put in place, though, was apt to generate two different strands of damages: it was in fact apt to cause direct damages to the shareholder’s interest that are incremental to those caused to the profitability of the subsidiary, providing the legal basis of a separate damage claim by the shareholder as well.

Lear is assisting a major producer of cement and concrete in several damages claims brought by clients active at different levels of the supply chain. The actions for damages follow an investigation by the Italian Competition Authority which had found that companies in the market for cement had coordinated their pricing behaviour. Lear’s economists are developing analyses seeking to show that the practice did not result in an overcharge in any of the steps of the supply chain. In the context of several claims, Salvatore Nava is also acting as the party’s economic expert to work along the court appointed expert to revise the damage quantification.

Lear is assisting a leading operator in the electricity retail market in a damages action started by a competitor. The competitor claims that Lear’s client has implemented unfair commercial practices aimed at winning back customers switched to the competitor. Lear developed economic arguments aimed at showing that the request for damages was unfounded as the alleged loss of clients was not causally attributable to Lear’s client and, in any case, the damages quantification suffered from several methodological flaws and could not therefore be considered reliable.

Lear is assisting a leading operator active in the telecommunication sector which participated to a tender aimed to secure suppliers of cloud services for Italian public organizations. The tender required Lear’s client to partner up with a cloud services provider, which decided to withdraw from the agreement shortly after Lear’s client’s bid was declared successful. This breach of contract resulted in Lear’s client being excluded from the tender. Lear is currently estimating the impact of the breach of contract and the amount of damages that its client is suffering.