[LITIGATION] Oct. 2018 – Mr Vaccaro secures a victory at the Grand Chamber of Italy’s Supreme Court of Cassation on cross-border interference dispute

Oct. 2018 – With decision no. 27164/2018, the Grand Chamber for civil law matters (‘Sezioni Unite Civili’) of Italy’s Supreme Court of Cassation rejected the petition to quash the decision of the Court of Appeal of Trieste – where Mr. Vaccaro had secured a victory for Italian broadcasters harmfully interfered by foreign broadcasters in and around the area of Trieste.

Preliminarily, the Supreme Court, inter alia recalling the case-law of the Court of Justice of the European Union, rejected the jurisdictional challenge against Italian courts and confirmed that in this type of cases jurisdiction is attached to the locus commissi delicti, hence to the place (and courts) where the harmful interference is produced, and not where the (foreign) interfering broadcasting station is located.

Significantly, the Supreme Court also established that the international convention on Radio-Regulations (1984) has no binding character per se, hence non-conformity of a State Party to its Master Registry (by not timely and/or punctually indicating domestic frequency assignations) does not justify cross-border harmful interference.