The Italian Competition Authority closes investigation on common interbank charges and MAV payment services by accepting commitments (Associazione Bancaria Italiana)

By a recent decision, the Italian Competition Authority (ICA) has closed an investigation into two anticompetitive agreements affecting the banking market for payment services by accepting and making binding a set of commitments presented by the parties upon the basis of Art. 14-ter of the Act 287/90 [1] . The facts of the case The two agreements are investigated for allegedly infringing Article 81 EC. The first agreement has been put in place by Associazione Bancaria Italiana or ABI, an association regrouping almost all Italian banks. According to the ICA, ABI collectively set the ceiling of interbank commissions charged on the handling of cheques and MAVs. MAV is a payment services supplied through a payment advice, which contains all the necessary data for payment. The payment advice