Italian translation of information to consumers: Court of Como limits the obligation under the Consumer Code to mandatory information

Background

The Italian Consumer Code (Legislative Decree No. 206/2005) requires information provided to consumers on product labels to be translated into Italian. Specifically, Article 9 (1) of the Italian Consumer Code states that “[a]ll information intended for consumers and users shall be provided in Italian, as a minimum requirement.” Paragraph 2 of the article states that “[w]here indications pursuant to this Title are provided in more than one language, they shall also be shown in Italian and must be shown in characters that are no less visible and legible than those used for the other languages.”

However, the scope of application of the obligation to translate the information into Italian is not clear.

On the one hand, the reference to “all information” in paragraph 1 of Article 9 of the Italian Consumer Code seems to impose the use of the Italian language for any kind of information appearing on the product or its packaging. On the other hand, paragraph 2, while stating that the packaging may show indications in a foreign language, limits the obligation of translation to the “indications pursuant to this Title,” hence only those required by Article 6 of the Italian Consumer Code. These include the indication of the name of the product, the presence of dangerous substances, the composition materials or the instructions and precautions for use.

The lack of a clear interpretation of the rule and of case law has had significant consequences for companies, especially for those selling the same type of consumer goods in different countries. Many of them have adopted a cautious approach, which has nevertheless led to economic burdens associated with creating specific packaging for products to be sold in Italy.

A recent decision of the Court of Como has clarified the scope of application of Article 9 of the Italian Consumer Code.

The decision

In the spring of this year, a company distributing electronic products appealed a confiscation order issued on the grounds that some information shown on the labels and packaging of the products at issue had not been translated into Italian. Yet the information was mainly intended to enhance the qualities of the products, so it couldn’t be qualified as mandatory information under Article 6 of the Italian Consumer Code.

According to the claimant, an indiscriminate obligation to translate product information into Italian would have been contrary to the European principle of the free movement of goods, which does not allow for Member States to restrict intra-EU trade in goods. Nor could an obstacle to the free movement of goods be justified by the need to protect consumers, whose interests are already safeguarded by the rules requiring the mandatory information referred to in Article 6 of the Consumer Code, to be shown in Italian.

Finally, the claimant also referred to the following legal principle already established by the Court of Justice of the European Union back in 1999: “In the absence of full harmonisation of language requirements applicable to information appearing on imported products, the Member States may adopt national measures requiring such information to be given in the language of the area in which the products are sold or in another language which may be readily understood by consumers in that area, provided that those national measures apply without distinction to all national and imported products and are proportionate to the objective of consumer protection which they pursue. They must, in particular, be restricted to information which the Member State makes mandatory and which cannot be appropriately conveyed to consumers by means other than translation” (CJEU, 3 June 1999, Colim / Bigg’s Continent Noord, C-33/97).

An interpretation of Article 9 of the Italian Consumer Code in line with European law should therefore have limited the translation requirement to the mandatory information.

On the contrary, the Authority that had issued the confiscation order insisted before the court on a broader interpretation of the provision.

By decision of 29 May 2024, the Court of Como upheld the claimant’s requests and revoked the confiscation order.

In particular, after noting that the information required by the law had been translated into Italian, the court pointed out that the lack of translation of the additional information did not result in “a concrete harm to the interests of the consumers.” Nor, according to the court, “could it be held that the translation obligation under Article 9 of the Italian Consumer Code must necessarily extend to all the information on the packaging, regardless of the existence of a concrete informative interest for the consumer, since otherwise, as the claimant correctly argued, the aforesaid legal framework would be contrary to the principle of the free movement of goods within the European Union (Article 34 TFEU).”

Lastly, the court held that “this approach seems more in line with the principle of offensiveness laid down in Article 49 of the Italian Criminal Code, with which the rules on administrative offences also comply, requiring the definition of the typical fact to be limited in the light of a concrete harm to the legal interest protected by the sanctioning provision.”

The decision is particularly important because it is the first Italian ruling on the issue, which has been subject to multiple and conflicting interpretations so far. Therefore, it may have significant impact for all companies selling consumer goods in Italy.

In the proceedings, DLA Piper’s IPT department represented the plaintiff. The team included Gualtiero Dragotti (partner), Massimiliano Tiberio (lawyer) and Camila Francesca Crisci (trainee lawyer).