Italian sounding and consumer protection

Practices that may be qualified as “Italian sounding”, even if not consisting in counterfeiting, imitations, misleading information concerning the origin, can only in exceptional cases be justified by business interests which are worthy of protection. In the majority of the cases, such practices may indeed not be justified as they impair the consumer’s interest, which deserves the highest level of protection for fully informed decision-making. The general clause concerning adequate information may contribute to filling the gaps in the system relating to the phenomenon of Italian sounding, as such a clause is suitable to provide solutions, which take into account both the concrete needs of business (if they are worth being protected in the concrete case) and the consumer’s interest in the avoidance of undue influence on the evaluation process of his or her own economic and contractual behaviour.