Covid-19 and Consumer Law - The Italian Response

As of July 2021, the number of Covid-19 cases reported in Italy is over 4 million, with over 127,000 deaths among these cases. As the financial impact of coronavirus on consumers in Italy has been substantial, the legislator tried to tackle the related challenges adequately. On 31 January 2020, the Italian Government released the Declaration of State of Emergency as a consequence of the health risk connected with the outbreak of pathologies deriving from Covid-19. In order to protect consumers from the negative effects of the pandemic emergency, further provisions were enacted in the following months. At the same time, the rise of scams or other unfair practices that tried to exploit consumer’s fears has been effectively tackled in particular by the Italian Competition Authority. The present contribution aims at offering a brief overview of the current regulatory approach of the Italian legislator and courts.