The administrative judge's recent decision, which forbade the granting of economic and commercial exploitation rights to the Sanremo Festival and its associated brand without a public procedure, provides an opportunity to contemplate the administration's ‘active contracts’ (related to the organisation or the execution of a public service), which are regulated in a mutually beneficial manner by the general accounting regulations dating back over a century and by the principles of market access, trust, and result as outlined in the new Italian code of public contracts.