(Alliance News) - Telecom Italia Spa announced Wednesday that the Rome Court of Appeals has closed in favor of the group a 15-year dispute concerning the restitution of the concession fee claimed for 1998, the year following the liberalization of the sector, and demanded in restitution by the company.

The sum owed is equal to the original fee, just over EUR500 million, plus revaluation and accrued interest, for a total of about EUR1 billion. The judgment is immediately enforceable and TIM will immediately initiate procedures to recover the amount in question.

The Court of Justice of the European Union has intervened on the matter on several occasions, pointing out the conflict between the directive on the liberalization of the telecommunications market and the national rules that had extended for 1998 the obligation to pay the fee to sector concessionaires.

Specifically, in 2020, the European judiciary ruled that the EU regulatory system did not allow a national regulation to extend for the 1998 financial year the obligation imposed on a telecommunications company, formerly a concessionaire -- such as TIM -- to pay a fee calculated on the basis of turnover, but only allowed for the demand for payment of administrative costs related to the issuance, management, control and implementation of the general authorization and individual licensing regime.

TIM's stock closed Wednesday up 5.2 percent at EUR0.23 per share.

By Giuseppe Fabio Ciccomascolo, Alliance News senior reporter

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