MILAN (Reuters) -Italy’s Antitrust said on Friday it had opened a probe into state-owned railway operator Ferrovie dello Stato (FS) and its unit Rete Ferroviaria Italiana (RFI) over an alleged abuse of dominant position in the high-speed passenger transport market.
RFI allegedly delayed, and in some cases obstructed, access to the national railway infrastructure, potentially hindering market access for France’s SNCF Voyages Italia, the authority said in a statement.
Antitrust and tax police officers on Thursday carried out inspections at the offices of FS and RFI, as well as at unit Trenitalia and private operator Italo, to review documents considered relevant to the investigation.
FS said in a statement that it had “fully cooperated” with the authority in its inspections.
The state-owned railway operator will have “the opportunity to affirm the fairness of its conduct” during a hearing planned at the start of the investigation, which will take place in the next 60 days, FS added.
SNCF Voyages Italia is part of French railway operator SNCF and its TGV high-speed trains have been have been running between Milan and Paris since 2011.
(Reporting by Gianluca Semeraro, editing by Gavin Jones)
