Postal companies also offer a full service for large customers: collect letters, frank them and send them. The Federal Cartel Office is now taking a closer look at this so-called consolidation.
The Bundeskartellamt has initiated proceedings against a subsidiary of the DHL Group (Deutsche Post). The proceedings also involve two other logistics service providers, Postcon Consolidation GmbH and Compador Dienstleistungs GmbH, with whom Swiss Post suspects it could have made unfair agreements.
“We will examine whether the existing agreements between Deutsche Post Inhaus Services and its direct competitors restrict competition,” said the head of the antitrust authority, Andreas Mundt, according to a statement in Bonn on Thursday. The Post – which now operates as a group under the name DHL Group – referred to the Postal Act and the assessment of the Federal Network Agency.
Through the subsidiary Deutsche Post Inhaus Services GmbH, the Bonn-based Dax group provides, among other things, what is known as consolidation, a complete service in which it processes mail sent by business customers. Deutsche Post collects the items from the customers, franks them and takes them to the mail centers. According to Swiss Post, more than six million shipments are sent every year. The 100 percent subsidiary responsible for this employs around 1,900 people, more than half of them in the consolidation division.
In line with competition law?
Post said on Thursday that the subsidiary was obliged under the Postal Act to also offer parts of its services to its direct competitors on request. The subsidiary complies with this obligation and duly submits the contracts with the competitors to the Federal Network Agency. So far, the authorities have not objected to this. “We are convinced that these agreements are also in line with competition law and will also explain this to the Federal Cartel Office,” the statement continued.
According to the head of the Cartel Office, Mundt, the letter consolidation business model “provides the most important competitive impetus on the letter market in the business customer segment compared to the dominant Deutsche Post AG.” By initiating proceedings, the competition authority makes the suspicion of a violation public. A cartel office spokesman said on request that he could not say anything about the outcome of the proceedings due to the early point in time.
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Source: Stern
