The regional administrative court (TAR) of Lazio on Sunday rejected art critic Vittorio Sgarbi's appeal to suspend a January 31 ruling by Italy's antitrust authority that his private conferences and other lucrative activities were incompatible with his role as cultureundersecretary in the Meloni government.
It said this was a preliminary move ahead of a final decision on the matter on March 6.
Sgarbi, 71, a famously volatile polemicist as well as one of Italy's top art critics and historians, resigned from government after the ruling.
He is the subject of a separate criminal probe into an allegedly stolen painting.
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