Two freight forwarders from Poland have sued the Federal Republic of Germany for calculating the truck toll. Now the Higher Administrative Court of North Rhine-Westphalia has passed a judgment.
In a sample procedure for calculating the truck toll, the Higher Administrative Court of North Rhine-Westphalia (OVG) in Munster partially agreed that two Polish freight forwarders were right.
The collection of the German truck toll in 2010 and 2011 violated EU law in some cases, the court found in a ruling. When calculating the toll rates, the capital costs of the freeway properties were incorrectly calculated. The court did not allow an appeal.
The Federal Office for Goods Transport (BAG) must now reimburse the plaintiff forwarding agents a total of 565 euros plus interest. How many freight forwarders could possibly benefit from the judgment was initially unclear. The plaintiff’s attorney said the decision will apply to seven additional cases.
The OVG had been dealing with the lawsuit since 2016. As part of the proceedings in October 2020, the European Court of Justice had already ruled that the costs for the traffic police should not be taken into account when calculating the truck toll. The Federal Republic then changed the calculation and reimbursed the plaintiffs around 424 euros in tolls.
Since then, the BAG has received tens of thousands of requests for reimbursement from freight forwarders and logistics companies. By June, the authority had counted just under 36,000 applications. The authority initially gave no information about the current number.
According to the judgment on Tuesday, the tolls according to the requirements of the so-called EU road cost directive must not exceed the infrastructure costs. It is not compatible with this if the capital costs of the freeway properties are calculated with their current replacement value instead of their acquisition value.
In contrast to other capital goods, real estate does not suffer any loss of substance and does not have to be procured again after a certain period of time. The toll rates were based on an incorrect calculation, it was said to justify.
On the other hand, a non-admission complaint is possible, which the Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig must decide on. The plaintiff’s lawyer, Martin Pfnür, expressed satisfaction with the verdict.
The two plaintiffs had operated a freight forwarding company in Poland until 2015. In total, they had reclaimed around 12,000 euros in tolls. The Cologne Administrative Court had dismissed their action in the first instance. Courts in North Rhine-Westphalia are responsible for the lawsuit because the Federal Office for Goods Transport, which is responsible for the truck toll, is located in Cologne.
The freight forwarding industry had followed the proceedings closely. The assessments of the court at the hearing would be of interest to thousands of toll-paying companies, the Federal Association of Freight Transport, Logistics and Disposal (BGL) announced in advance.
According to the EU directive, the amount of the truck toll must be based on the actual travel costs. These include the costs of building, expanding, maintaining and operating the road network. Costs from air pollution and noise pollution may also be taken into account.
The truck toll was introduced in Germany in 2005 on the federal motorways and was later extended to all federal highways. Last year the revenue was around 7.4 billion euros.
Source From: Stern
Jane Stock is a technology author, who has written for 24 Hours World. She writes about the latest in technology news and trends, and is always on the lookout for new and innovative ways to improve his audience’s experience.
