Judgment of the Court of Justice Fifth Chamber, 20 March 2025, Anib and Others, C-728/22 to C-730/22

• Date: 20 March 2025
• Year: 2025

29

3. PUBLIC PRO CUREMENT

Judgment of the Court of Justi ce (Fifth Chamber), 20 March 2025, Anib and Ot hers,

C-728/22 to C-730/22

Link to the full text of the judgment

References for a preliminary ruling – Directiv e 2014/23/EU – Concessions for the activity of managing

games and collecting bets – Article 43 – Modification of a conc ession durin g its p erformance – National

legislation providing for the payment by concessionaires of a monthly fee payable in respect of the

extension of the duration of the validity of the concessions – Compatibility – Article 5 – Obligation on

Member States to con fer on th e contrac ting authori ty the power to initia te, at the req uest of a

concessionaire, a procedure to modify the operating conditions of a concession, where unforeseeable

events not attribu table to the parti es have a significant impac t on the operating risk of th e concession –

None

Hearing th ree references for a preliminary ruling from t he Consiglio di Stato (Council of State, Italy),

the Court examines the compatibility with EU law of the Italian ‘technical extension’ scheme by which

certain concessions for the activity of managing games and collecting bets were ext ended without

issuing a new c all for tenders.

The appellants in the main proceedings are undertakings operating bingo halls and two professional

groups of undertakings in that business sector. They brought actions before the Tribunale

amministrativo regionale per il Lazio (Regional Administrativ e Court , Lazio, Italy) against, in certain

cases, th e refusal by the Agen zia delle Dogane e dei Monopoli (Customs and Monopolies Agen cy, Italy;

‘the ADM’) of requests for the immediate suspension of the monthly fee payable under the technical

extension scheme until such time as the economic and financial balance of those concessions

prevailing before the COVID-19 pandemic had been restored and, in other cases, a measure adopted

by the ADM t o increase the month ly fee payabl e by the concessio naires under t he technical extension

scheme.

The technical extension scheme was introduced for concessions which had expired in order to allow

concessionaires to continue to carry on their activities on a temporary basis in return, inter alia, for

the introduction of a monthly fee, the amount of which was subsequently increased several times, in

particular by Law No 205/2017. 39

The Regional Administrative Court, Lazio dismissed the actions as unfounded, having regard in

particular to case-law of the Corte costituzionale (Constitutional Court, Italy) finding that the national

legislation was in line with the It alian Const itut ion.

The appellants in the main proceedings brought an appeal against those judgments before the

referring court which, harbouring doubts as to whether the national legislation concerned was

compat ible with EU law, therefo re made a reference to t he Court for a preliminary ruling.

Findings of the Court

In the first place, the Court finds that Directive2014/23 40 applies ratione temp oris to contracts

awarded before its entry into force where a legislative extension of those contracts introduces new

obligations for private contracting parties after the deadline for transposing that directive. Since it

39 Legge n. 205 – Bilancio di prevision e dello Sta to per l’ anno finan ziario 2018 e bilancio p luriennale per il tr iennio 2018-2020 ( Law No 205 on

the estimated State budget for the financial year 2018 and the plurennial budget for the three-year period 2018-2020), of 2 7 December 2017

(GURI No 302 of 29 December 2017, Ordinary Supplement No 62) (‘Law No 205/2017’).

40 Directive 2014/23/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 February 2014 on th e award of concession contracts ( OJ 2014

L 94, p. 1).