The marriage between Poste Italiane and Tim is in the works. Or rather, it can be done. This is what the Lazio Regional Administrative Court established, rejecting the appeal presented by Iliad against the Antitrust’s green light for the operation.
The administrative judges confirmed the validity of the decision adopted by the Competition and Market Authority in September 2025 not to launch an in-depth investigation into the acquisition that led Poste Italiane to acquire exclusive control of Tim.
What did the Lazio Regional Administrative Court decide on the Poste-Tim case
Iliad’s claims were rejected in their entirety. In the sentence, the TAR states that the Antitrust provision is the result of an adequately motivated technical evaluation and does not present elements of unreasonableness or errors such as to justify the intervention of the judge.
According to the Administrative Court, the Authority correctly exercised its discretionary power in evaluating the effects of the operation. In particular, the judges ruled out that there were:
- errors in the reconstruction of facts;
- manifestly illogical assessments;
- misrepresentations of the data collected during the procedure.
Because Iliad had appealed against the operation
The matter takes its origins from the Antitrust decision of 3 September 2025 to authorize the acquisition of exclusive control of Tim by Poste Italiane without launching further investigations. According to Iliad, the operation could have had negative effects on competition in the telecommunications and related services market.
The French company contested in particular the fact that the Authority had not identified significant competitive risks deriving from the operation and therefore requested the annulment of the provision. The aim of the appeal was to obtain a new evaluation by the Antitrust through the opening of a formal investigation.
Because the Antitrust had not opened an investigation
The other question to ask yourself to fully understand the Poste-Tim affair is precisely this. In September 2025, the Competition and Market Authority concluded that the acquisition of control of the telephone company by the Poste Group did not constitute a concentration prohibited by antitrust legislation.
The evaluation examined both horizontal and vertical aspects. Result: according to the Antitrust, the operation was not likely to lead to a significant reduction of competition or the creation of a dominant position capable of altering the market. Precisely this conclusion had been contested by Iliad, who instead believed further investigation was necessary.
The vertical and conglomerate effects contested by Iliad
One of the central points of the appeal concerned the so-called vertical effects of the concentration. In simple terms, this expression indicates the advantages that an integrated group could obtain by operating simultaneously in multiple segments of the same economic supply chain.
However, the TAR considered that the Antitrust had already analyzed this aspect adequately and that the conclusions reached were supported by the elements collected during the proceedings.
Not only that: the claims regarding conglomerate effects were also rejected. This other expression instead refers to the possible advantages deriving from the possibility of offering different products and services within the same group.
According to the judges, the Authority had also correctly assessed this profile, reaching the conclusion that the new industrial reality would not have led to effects such as to compromise the competitive comparison on the market.
What changes now for Poste Italiane and Tim
The ruling obviously strengthens Poste Italiane’s position and definitively confirms, at least on an administrative level, the validity of the green light granted by the Antitrust
For the state-led group, this is an important step in the path of consolidating its presence in the telecommunications sector. For Tim, however, the decision eliminates one of the main legal uncertainties that continued to weigh on the operation.
In other words, the TAR’s ruling does not modify the already existing corporate structure, but consolidates the regulatory framework within which the acquisition was carried out.
