Governor Roberto Fico has received his first legal blow in the water issue. The Campania Regional Administrative Court (TAR) has suspended, as a precautionary measure, the tender through which the Region sought to reorganize the management of the major water supply system, upholding the appeal of Acqua Campania SpA, an Italgas group company and the current operator of the service.
The decision freezes the entire procedure until the hearing on the merits set for March 11, 2026, but above all, it sets out in black and white the errors in the approach adopted by Palazzo Santa Lucia.
According to administrative judges, the tender documentation does not provide bidders with a clear and verifiable economic and financial picture. The critical issues concern the determination of profit margins and the overall balance of the operation, essential elements for real, not merely formal, competition. Without a substantial rewrite of the rules, the tender risks generating new disputes and cannot proceed.
The scenario changes: the ARERA obligation kicks in
The restart must take place within the regulatory framework recently established by the Regulatory Authority for Energy, Networks and the Environment. With Resolution 347/2025/R/idr, ARERA approved the standard tender template for the Integrated Water Service award, which will become the binding reference for all procedures initiated after January 1, 2026.
The scheme was created precisely to avoid "variable geometry" tenders between territories and create a national level playing field, imposing uniform minimum contents coordinated with tariff and service quality regulations.
The ARERA model establishes the financial and technical information that must be made available to bidders: from the management scope to the terms of takeover, from the duration of the contract to the scope of the required investments. Above all, it requires the tender to be conducted in accordance with a consistent economic and tariff framework. The bid must be based on an economic and financial plan constructed according to transparent, comparable rules and compatible with the current tariff method.
Stricter rules to avoid new appeals
The plan also requires more stringent standards for risk allocation between the contracting entity and the operator, for the measurability of technical and contractual quality commitments, and for clauses ensuring operational continuity and user protection during the transition phase. For Campania, the TAR's ruling represents not just a procedural setback but a true change of direction.
The next tender will have to be rewritten "in accordance with ARERA," explicitly specifying the economic parameters, expected returns, and the sustainability of the operation according to the 2026 national standard. Otherwise, the Region will be exposed to further criticism. This is precisely where the regional error highlighted by the judges lies: having constructed a tender without the level of economic determination that ARERA has codified as a basic requirement for the market.
The restart now becomes a mandatory step within the Authority's standard framework, transforming what was supposed to be a rapid reorganization into a complex process bound by new national regulations.
Verified Source
Comments (1)
Reading the article, it seems Governor Fico has run into legal issues regarding the water tender. It's important to have clear rules for its management, otherwise there's a risk of confusion and future disputes. I hope the new regulations can resolve these issues.