Italian court declares Netflix's price hikes illegal, calls for lower prices and complete refunds

A court in Rome found Netflix's price increases for Italian customers over the last seven years to be unlawful and has ordered the U.S. media giant to reimburse them, Reuters reported.

In a statement from the consumer association Movimento Consumatori, the court upheld its lawsuit against Netflix Italia and deemed the clauses that allowed subscription price increases from 2017 to 2024 unfair. 

The court said that Netflix raised its monthly fees nearly every two years since 2017 without stating a valid reason in the contract, breaching the national consumer code.

The ruling said each subscriber would be entitled to a reduction in the current subscription price, reimbursement of sums paid in excess, and, when applicable, compensation.

"For the Premium Plan, the unlawful increases during 2017, 2019, 2021, and 2024 total 8 euros [$9] per month, while for the Standard Plan, the total is 4 euros monthly," noted lawyers Paolo Fiorio and Riccardo Pinna, representing the affected consumers.

"A Premium subscriber who has maintained continuous service from 2017 to the present is eligible for a refund of about 500 euros [$580], while a Standard subscriber is entitled to around 250 euros [$290]," they stated.

In response, Netflix announced plans to appeal the court's ruling, asserting, per Reuters: "We take consumer rights very seriously and believe our terms have always conformed to Italian laws and practices."

As the leading video streaming provider globally, Netflix offers a wide array of films and television series in numerous languages across more than 190 countries. 

As consumers across the U.S. face increasing electricity prices and grocery bills, tensions are also growing as tech and media companies implement more artificial intelligence without lowering product or subscription prices.

This news has Netflix subscribers outside of Italy calling for similar outcomes. "Let's make this happen worldwide," one individual wrote on the social platform X.

"European courts doing more for consumer rights in one weekend than decades of angry tweets ever accomplished," another commented.

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