Information;Order — ECLI:EU:C:2026:135
Date: 2026-02-03
Language of the case: Italian
Court formation: Seventh Chamber
Procedure: Reference for a preliminary ruling
Origin: Italy

Summary C-316/25 – 1 
Case C-316/25 
Summary of the request for a preliminary ruling pursuant to Article 98(1) of 
the Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice 
Date lodged: 
7 May 2025 
Referring court: 
Consiglio di Stato (Italy) 
Date of the decision to refer: 
5 May 2025 
Appellant: 
Regione Umbria 
Respondent: 
Ge.Fi.L. – Gestione Fiscalità Locale SpA 
Other parties to the proceedings: 
Automobile Club d’Italia 
ACI Informatica SpA 
Punto Zero S.c.a.r.l. 
  
Subject matter of the main proceedings 
Appeal brought before the Consiglio di Stato (Council of State, Italy) against a 
judgment of the Tribunale amministrativo regionale (Regional Administrative 
Court, Italy) (TAR) which dismissed the action brought against the cooperation 
agreement by which Regione Umbria (Umbria Regional Authority) awarded a 
contract for the provision of certain IT services relating to the management of 
regional motor vehicle tax directly to the Automobile Club d’Italia (ACI), a non-
economic public institution, for pecuniary interest, without a call for tenders. 
EN 
SUMMARY OF THE REQUEST FOR A PRELIMINARY RULING – CASE C-316/25 
 
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Subject matter and legal basis of the request 
Interpretation of EU law as regards whether it precludes a national provision that 
allows a regional authority to award a contract for the provision of services 
relating to the management of motor vehicle tax to a non-economic public 
institution directly, without a call for tenders. 
Article 267 TFEU. 
Question referred for a preliminary ruling 
Is Article 51(2a) and (2b) of decreto-legge n. 124 (Decree-Law No 124) of 2019, 
converted into law, with amendments, by legge n. 157 (Law No 157) of 2019, 
compatible with Article 12(4) of Directive 2014/24/EU of the European 
Parliament and of the Council of 26 February 2014 on public procurement? 
Provisions of European Union law and case-law relied on 
Article 12(4) of Directive 2014/24/EU of the European Parliament and of the 
Council of 26 February 2014 on public procurement and repealing Directive 
2004/18/EC. 
Order of the Court of 30 June 2020, Ge.Fi.L. – Gestione Fiscalità Locale SpA v 
Regione Campania, C-618/19, EU:C:2020:508. 
Principles of competition, economy, effectiveness, impartiality, equal treatment, 
transparency and proportionality, as well as all general public procurement 
principles. 
Provisions of national law and case-law relied on 
Article 17(10) of legge n. 449 (Law No 449) of 27 December 1997, under which 
the task of assessing and collecting motor vehicle taxes is conferred on regional 
authorities and may be entrusted to third parties by means of calls for tenders, and 
pursuant to which decreto ministeriale n. 418 (Ministerial Decree No 418) of 
25 November 1998 was adopted. 
Article 2 of Ministerial Decree No 418 of 1998. 
Article 5(6) of decreto legislativo n. 50 – Codice dei contratti pubblici (Legislative 
Decree No 50 establishing the Public Procurement Code) of 18 April 2016, which, 
according to the referring court, provides that an agreement concluded exclusively 
between two or more contracting authorities may be concluded without a call for 
tenders only where all of the following conditions are fulfilled: 
REGIONE UMBRIA 
 
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(a) the agreement establishes or implements cooperation between the participating 
contracting authorities with the aim of ensuring that public services they have to 
perform are provided with a view to achieving objectives they have in common; 
(b) the implementation of that cooperation is governed solely by considerations 
relating to the public interest; 
(c) the participating contracting authorities perform on the open market less than 
20% of the activities concerned by the cooperation. 
Article 51(2a) and (2b) of decreto-legge n. 124 (Decree-Law No 124) of 
26 October 2019, as converted into law by legge n. 157 (Law No 157) of 
19 December 2019, pursuant to which: 
‘… 2a For the same purposes as those referred to in paragraph 1 [in order to 
improve the effectiveness and efficiency of administrative action and to promote 
the […] digitalisation of services and processes through consolidating 
infrastructure, streamlining information systems and interoperability between 
databases], as well as with the aim of eliminating duplication, combating motor 
vehicle tax evasion and achieving cost savings, data on motor vehicle taxes shall 
also be entered […] into the information system of the public motor vehicle 
register, in order to perform, on a transitional basis, the function of integrating 
and coordinating the related archives. That data shall be made available to the 
Agenzia delle entrate (the Revenue Agency, Italy) [and] the regional authorities 
[…], which shall ensure that the data from their motor vehicle tax archives is 
simultaneously and systematically incorporated into the abovementioned 
information system. 2b The Revenue Agency [and] the regional authorities […] 
shall continue to maintain their own motor vehicle tax archives, including through 
cooperation, regulated by particular specifications, of the entity managing the 
motor public vehicle register […]’. 
Sentenza n. 6364 (judgment No 6364) of 30 June 2023, Council of State, Sezione 
V (Section V). 
Succinct presentation of the facts and procedure in the main proceedings 
1 On 7 February 2023, the Umbria Regional Authority awarded a contract for the 
provision of certain IT services relating to the management of regional motor 
vehicle tax to the ACI – a non-economic public institution that has the task of 
maintaining the public register of motor vehicles (the register of vehicle rights’ 
holders and persons liable to pay tax on motor vehicles, and amendments thereto; 
‘the PRA’) – for pecuniary interest, without a prior call for tenders. 
2 That cooperation agreement was entered into by the Umbria Regional Authority, 
pending the completion of the process of bringing the management of regional 
motor vehicle tax in-house, which has been in progress for several years. 
According to the annexes to that agreement, the Umbria Regional Authority, 
SUMMARY OF THE REQUEST FOR A PRELIMINARY RULING – CASE C-316/25 
 
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which introduced new management software (N-STAR) to replace the software 
previously used by the ACI (SINTA), will continue to rely on the ACI and its 
SINTA management software to complete the activities relating to the tax years 
prior to 2023, and in parallel the N-STAR software (developed by the ACI, which 
will be reimbursed for the costs incurred in that regard) will be rolled out 
gradually for all functions. It is also apparent from those annexes that the regional 
authority is likely to achieve full autonomy in the related IT management from 
2025 onwards. 
3 The Umbria Regional Authority expressly based its decision on the rules on 
interoperability between databases of national archives and those of regional 
archives in a single IT platform, in particular on Article 51(2a) and (2b) of 
Decree-Law No 124 of 26 October 2019, as converted into law by Law No 157 of 
19 December 2019 (‘Decree-Law No 124/2019’), cited above. 
4 Ge.Fi.L. – Gestione Fiscalità Locale SpA, an economic operator in the sector 
concerned, asserted that the conditions necessary for a direct award, that is to say 
without a call for tenders, between administrative authorities, as referred to in 
Article 5(6) of Legislative Decree No 50 establishing the Public Procurement 
Code of 18 April 2016 and Article 12 of Directive 2014/24/EU, were not satisfied, 
and that, therefore, the principles of competition, economy, effectiveness, 
impartiality, equal treatment, transparency and proportionality, as well as all the 
general public procurement principles, had been infringed, and thereby challenged 
the abovementioned cooperation agreement before the TAR. 
5 In particular, Ge.Fi.L. asserted that in August 2019 – a few months before the 
Italian legislature adopted Article 51(2a) and (2b) of Decree-Law No 124 of 
26 October 2019 relied on by the Umbria Regional Authority – a question had 
been referred to the Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling in a similar case, to 
which it had been answered that ‘Article 12(4) of Directive 2014/24/EU of the 
European Parliament and of the Council of 26 February 2014 on public 
procurement and repealing Directive 2004/18/EC must be interpreted as 
precluding a national provision which allows the service contract relating to the 
management of the tax on vehicles to be awarded directly, without being put out 
to competition, to a non-economic public institution tasked with managing the 
public vehicle register’ (Order of 30 June 2020, Ge.Fi.L. – Gestione Fiscalità 
Locale SpA v Regione Campania, C-618/19, EU:C:2020:508, operative part). 
6 The TAR before which proceedings were brought held that the agreement at issue 
was not limited to cooperation concerning the mere management of the regional 
IT archive for the purposes set out in Article 51(2b) of Decree-Law No 124/2019, 
and that the division of tasks between the two entities concerned instead expressly 
extended to additional activities of ‘management of regional tax on motor 
vehicles’, which fall within the remit of the regional authority. 
7 For that reason, by sentenza n. 570 (judgment No 570) of 2023, the TAR upheld 
the action, annulled the agreement concerned and ordered the Umbria Regional 
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Authority, if it could not immediately carry out the management of regional motor 
vehicle tax in-house, to issue a call for tenders in order to entrust that management 
to economic operators which satisfy the necessary criteria. 
8 The Umbria Regional Authority brought an appeal against that judgment before 
the Council of State (the referring court), in which Ge.Fi.L. is the respondent. 
The essential arguments of the parties in the main proceedings 
9 According to the Umbria Regional Authority, Article 51 of Decree-Law 
No 124/2019 radically changed the rules governing the management of regional 
motor vehicle tax as a whole, including the integrated management of regional 
archives with the national archive (Archivio nazionale delle tasse 
automobilistiche; the National Archive of Motor Vehicle Taxes (ANTA)), 
conferred by law on the ACI, and provided that all those archives must be 
interoperable with each other. That provision also granted the Revenue Agency, 
Italy and the regional authorities the possibility of relying on the ACI for the 
management of their motor vehicle tax archives, by way of particular 
specifications organising their cooperation. 
10 Consequently, there is, allegedly, a substantial difference between, on the one 
hand, the cooperation agreement of 7 February 2023 between the Umbria 
Regional Authority and the ACI, at issue in the main proceedings, and, on the 
other hand, the agreements for the management of motor vehicle taxes relating to 
2019/2021 and 2022, respectively, between the same entities: only the latter 
agreements are similar to those which were the subject of the order of the Court of 
Justice cited above. In particular, the abovementioned cooperation agreement is 
allegedly limited to the establishment of an IT system which is common to both 
entities and aimed at achieving the objectives of both entities, that is to say the 
management of the national archive by the ACI and the management of the 
regional archive by the regional authority, which reflect each other, whereas the 
previous agreements at issue in the proceedings which gave rise to the judgment 
of the Court of Justice were concerned with the management of motor vehicle 
taxes. 
11 By contrast, according to Ge.Fi.L., the conditions for exemption from the 
procurement procedure laid down in Article 5 of the Public Procurement Code and 
Article 12 of Directive 2014/24/EU would not be fulfilled even if it were accepted 
that the agreement at issue entrusts only the management of the regional archives 
to the ACI, since those conditions – with the exception of the common or ancillary 
nature of the functions – do not depend on whether the agreement entrusts only 
the regional archives to the ACI or a wide range of activities for the management 
of the regional tax. 
12 Those conditions, which are wholly independent of the extent of the services 
commissioned from the ACI, allegedly include, in particular, the condition of an 
economic nature set out in paragraph 27 of the order of the Court of Justice in 
SUMMARY OF THE REQUEST FOR A PRELIMINARY RULING – CASE C-316/25 
 
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C-618/19, which, in the present case, is allegedly not satisfied, given that the 
cooperation agreement at issue provides for entrusting tasks of the Umbria 
Regional Authority to the ACI, which are remunerated (moreover, according to 
Ge.Fi.L., in a way that is above market level), whereas the regional authority does 
not take on any of the ACI’s tasks. 
Succinct presentation of the reasoning in the request for a preliminary ruling 
13 The Council of State, before which that appeal has been brought, sets out in detail 
the grounds of a recent judgment on the matter (judgment No 6364 of 30 June 
2023, Section V) – by which it dismissed the appeals brought by the Umbria 
Regional Authority and the ACI against sentenza n. 731/2022 (judgment 
No 731/2022) of the TAR Umbria, which had annulled the agreement for the 
management of motor vehicle taxes for 2022 (referred to in paragraph 10 above) – 
stating as follows: 
(a) the regional authorities carry out administrative activities regarding collection, 
assessment, recovery, reimbursement, application of penalties and administrative 
proceedings in relation to regional motor vehicle tax, which constitute a public 
function and may be carried out either by having recourse to the structures of 
other public entities or by entrusting them to third parties by means of tendering 
procedures, pursuant to Article 17 of Law No 449/1997, read in conjunction with 
Article 2 of Ministerial Decree No 418/1998, which implements that law; 
(b) the ACI – which, until the entry into force of Law No 449/1997 (which 
transferred the related competence to the regional authorities with effect from 
1 January 1999), was entrusted by the Ministero delle Finanze (Ministry of 
Finance, Italy) with activities relating to the management of motor vehicle tax – 
no longer has competence for those activities, which are reserved to the regional 
authorities. Furthermore, the maintenance of ANTA (which already fell within the 
competence of the Revenue Agency, which was taken over by the ACI) does not 
directly concern the management of motor vehicle tax, within the meaning of the 
immediate exercise of the abovementioned activities of collection, assessment, 
recovery, reimbursement, application of penalties and administrative proceedings 
set out above. Although ANTA is used for the management of regional motor 
vehicle taxes, it is merely a database that brings together at national level the 
results of the regional motor vehicle tax archives; 
(c) those regional motor vehicle tax archives are instead managed by the regional 
authorities, and Article 51(2b) of Decree-Law No 124/2019 refers to the 
maintenance of those archives, where, for the purposes specified in that provision, 
it allows the regional authorities to obtain, for the maintenance of their own 
archives, ‘cooperation, regulated by particular specifications’ of the ‘entity 
managing the public motor vehicle register’. The identification of the ACI as the 
entity authorised to provide that ‘cooperation’ is justified, in Article 51(2a), by the 
entry of motor vehicle tax data into the PRA information system; 
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(d) it can be ruled out that that provision was intended to confer autonomous 
public functions in relation to the management of motor vehicle tax on the entity 
managing the PRA (in the present case, the ACI), even if, in practice, it ultimately 
conferred on the PRA the additional function of archiving (also) motor vehicle 
tax; 
(e) in any event, the public service function conferred on the ACI as manager of 
the PRA, although increased by those recently introduced tasks, cannot be 
classified as the activity of managing and collecting motor vehicle tax, and it is 
also not possible to classify the agreement between the Umbria Regional 
Authority and the ACI, which is the subject of the appeal, as a cooperation 
agreement between public administrative authorities within the meaning of 
Article 12 of Directive 2014/24/EU, at least as regards activities other than that of 
maintaining archives expressly covered by the cooperation introduced by 
Article 51 of Decree-Law No 124/2019. 
14 In the light of those observations, by judgment No 6364 of 2023, cited above, the 
Council of State upheld the decision of the TAR according to which the 
agreement for the management of motor vehicle taxes of 2022 between the 
Umbria Regional Authority and the ACI was not limited to the mere management 
of the regional IT archive of motor vehicle taxes for the purposes referred to in 
Article 51 of Decree-Law No 124/2019, since that agreement extended to a series 
of additional activities relating to the management of regional motor vehicle tax 
which are instead attributable to a public function which falls within the exclusive 
competence of the regional authority and which, as such, could potentially have 
been the subject of an award to third parties by means of a specific tendering 
procedure. 
15 For the same reasons as those referred to above, the Council of State also has 
doubts in the present case as to whether the agreement of 7 February 2023 
between the Umbria Regional Authority and the ACI constitutes cooperation in 
respect of which it is possible not to issue a call for tenders. Among other things, 
it is apparent from the documents relating to the agreement at issue that the 
Umbria Regional Authority reimburses the ACI for the costs incurred for the use 
of the national archive, technological infrastructure and software development of 
N-STAR, which gives rise to doubts as to whether the condition of an economic 
nature, which is allegedly necessary in order to omit the tendering procedure 
within the meaning of the legislation deriving from EU law, referred to in 
paragraph 12 above, is fulfilled. 
16 Ultimately, the Council of State has doubts as to whether certain IT services and 
management of the regional archive which the regional authority needs for the 
purposes of the management of regional motor vehicle tax, where they cannot be 
managed by the regional authority on its own, may be the subject of an agreement 
with the ACI such as the one described above; and whether that agreement 
satisfies the abovementioned conditions for exemption from the call for tenders 
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laid down in Article 12(4) of Directive 2014/24/EU, or, by not satisfying those 
conditions, those services must be awarded by means of a call for tenders. 
17 In that context, considering it necessary in order to rule on the appeal pending 
before it, it stays the proceedings and asks the Court of Justice to clarify whether 
Article 51(2a) and (2b) of Decree-Law No 124/2019 is compatible with Article 12 
of Directive 2014/24/EU cited above.