Obblighi legali a contrarre e attività d'impresa

In Italian private law, the freedom of contract plays a significant role. This kind of principle makes each person free to choose if conclude or not a contract, to identify contractual partners and also to establish the content of the contractual provisions. However, in some cases the formation of a contract is directly prescribed by law. A typical example of legal obligation to contract could be find in the article 2597 cod. civ., that forces legal monopolist to enter into contracts concerning monopolized goods or services, respecting the principle of equal treatment. The above mentioned provision, in conjunction with article 1679 cod. civ. (which forecasts a similar obligation for the holder of an administrative concession for public transport services), describes a unitary model that maybe could be applied to all legal obligations to contract in the context of business activities.The present work aims to research if a legal obligation to contract could be derived from the antitrust law, especially from the article 102 TFUE and, regarding to Italian antitrust law, from the article 3, l. n. 287/1990, which prohibits the abuse of dominant position, and also from the article 9, l. n. 192/1998, which forbids the abuse of economic dependence. A related issue concerns the possibility to extend the above mentioned unitary model, established by articles 2597 and 1679 cod. civ., to those which some authors called “new obligations to contract”.