Decision of the week · 30 June 2026
Council of State, Sixth Chamber, order of 30 June 2026, no. 5167
Cons. St., sez. VI, ord. 30 giugno 2026, n. 5167
Legislation: art. 14 l. n. 689/1981 (Normattiva)
Official document published by the Italian administrative justice portal, freely accessible (in Italian).
By order no. 5167 of 30 June 2026, the Sixth Chamber of the Italian Council of State referred to the Constitutional Court the question whether the duty, stemming from the EU Court of Justice’s judgment in case C-511/23, to disapply the 90-day time limit set by Article 14 of Law no. 689 of 1981 for charging antitrust infringements is compatible with the Italian Constitution.
In 2021 the Italian Competition Authority (AGCM) fined the Amazon group over 1.13 billion euros for abuse of a dominant position (Article 102 TFEU): visibility advantages on amazon.it were conditional on purchasing Amazon’s own logistics service. Among the grounds of appeal, the companies argued that the investigation had been opened late: the first complaints dated back to 2015 and 2017, while the opening of the proceedings came only in April 2019.
Three profiles stand out. First, the Council doubts that the disapplication of the time limit, imposed by the Court of Justice’s interpretation, is compatible with fundamental constitutional principles: legality of sanctions (Article 25), the right of defence (Article 24), and sound administration (Article 97). This is the logic of the “counter-limits” doctrine, with an express reference to the Constitutional Court’s ability to engage directly with the Court of Justice through a preliminary reference.
Second, in the alternative, the order challenges the vacuum that disapplication creates: a sanctioning power without any fixed time limit for opening the adversarial investigation phase.
Third, the Council of State also points to a “constitutionally adequate” solution: extending the 180-day limit already provided by the legislature for the sanctions of other independent authorities, such as Consob and the energy authority.
Pending the Constitutional Court’s ruling, the proceedings are stayed. But the question goes beyond the individual case: for every company facing sanctioning proceedings before an independent authority, fixed time limits are a guarantee of legality and defence, not an obstacle to the effectiveness of EU law.