The Supreme Court on interests and agreements restricting competition

The issue of the validity of the clause on interest of a banking contract (in this case a leasing contract) comes to the attention of the Supreme Court, The case dealt with a clause which determined the interest rate by making reference to the applicable Euribor rate, which was however manipulated as a result of an agreement restricting competition between some of the most important banks at international level (as sanctioned by the European Commission in December 2013).

With ordinance no. 34889 of December 13, 2023, the third civil section of the Supreme Court, distancing itself from the orientation followed by a large number of merit judges, applied Article 2 of the Italian antitrust law, based on an interpretation referring the rule not only to the original competition-restrictive agreement, but “to the entire more comprehensive situation... which... creates an obstacle to competition”, and, therefore, also to downstream transactions or contracts which constitute “application of illicit agreements previously concluded”.