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The coming into force of the rules governing class actions in Italy has been postponed several times, but finally such regulations – as amended by Law 23 July 2009 No. 99 – will come into force on 1 January 2010. This is a considerable change that however will have limited effects since it will be possible to bring class actions only for the protection of:
- contractual rights of a number of consumers and users which have an identical claim towards a company, including claims based on standard contractual terms (e.g. the Ts&Cs of a website);
- identical rights held by final users of a product towards its manufacturer; and
- identical rights of consumers and users to the recovery of the damages arising out of unfair commercial practices or of unfair competition conducts.
Despite of the limited scope of the regulations governing class action proceedings, Internet operators, including e-commerce and gaming operators, shall pay more attention in the future to the Ts&Cs governing the relationships with their users as well as to the prize competitions, promotions and advertising initiatives implemented to promote their services. In particular, advertisments or prize competitions able to mislead consumers might be not only sanctionable by the Italian Competition Authority through fines up to € 500,000, but might also give rise to class action proceedings. Therefore, from now on operators shall monitor very closely the activity of their marketing departments.
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