Abstract

The article aims at verifying some relationships existing between consortia, as foreseen by the Italian civil code, and competition, within the field of environmental services in Italy. In fact, also thanks to some features of national environmental law, many consortia have been set up among private companies for managing different types of waste and fulfilling the undertaking's environmental liabilities. Although these consortia obtained good managing results, they also created competitive difficulties within many product markets: more in details, the authors examine the cases of COBAT and CONAI, the consortia responsible for the management of lead and packaging waste, as they have been recently put under scrutiny by the Italian competition Authority. Beyond the antitrust issues, the article tries to sketch some general considerations with regards to possible relationships between economic activities and environmental protection.