Morellato capped its sellers' discounts and banned marketplaces — Italy fined it €25.9M

In March 2026 Italy's Competition Authority (AGCM) fined Morellato S.p.A. — among Italy's largest producers of mid-range, accessible-priced jewelry and watches — €25,895,043 for running its selective distribution network as a restraint of competition. The conduct ran from 20 July 2018 to 23 December 2025.

AGCM found two practices. First, resale price maintenance: Morellato set the maximum online discount levels its distributors could apply and enforced them with price-monitoring software, warnings, discount revocations, order blocks and threats to terminate contracts. Second, an explicit contract clause banned distributors from third-party marketplaces such as Amazon and eBay — a ban Morellato policed while its own official stores sold on those same platforms. The marketplace ban was discriminatory and unjustified, and the pricing was a 'hardcore' restriction under EU competition rules.

The proceedings opened on 18 March 2025 after an anonymous whistleblower report and were widened in July 2025 to cover the pricing. Because Morellato's own stores competed on the same marketplaces, the practical effect was to close the online channel to its independent retailers while keeping it open for itself — using a selective-distribution system to control price and channel rather than to protect the brand.

Italy fined it €25.9M for resale price maintenance and discriminatory marketplace bans, enforced by monitoring software and order blocks.

It controlled price and channel, not brand quality: selective distribution is lawful when it protects product image, but AGCM found no such justification — the bans were discriminatory

The enforcement was the tell: monitoring software, automatic order blocks and termination threats show the aim was obedience, not selectivity — a system built to police price is price-fixing

It sold on the marketplaces it banned others from: its own official stores were on Amazon and eBay while distributors were barred, gutting any neutrality argument

The fine followed a whistleblower and a widened probe: seven years of conduct, two practices, one regulator, and a €25.9M bill

Controlling resellers' prices and channels is silent price-fixing — punishing deviation writes your antitrust case. Blocking marketplaces for others while you sell on them never survives.

The AGCM decision of 31 March 2026 imposed the €25,895,043 fine and ordered Morellato to stop the practices. It is part of a broader 2025 enforcement push on vertical restraints over pricing in the watch and jewelry sector, with parallel investigations still open. Morellato faces the fine plus the cost of redesigning the distribution agreements it spent seven years enforcing.