Image: (APA)
Background: Five years ago, several consolidators – service providers who prepare advertising mail for major customers – turned to the antitrust court because they felt disadvantaged by the post office, which also offers the service itself. They were partly right, and the postal service then adjusted its approach at the beginning of 2022.
According to the BWB, the cartel court made it clear at the time that the postal service was not allowed to give sender customers higher annual bonuses or discounts than the consolidators when paying for Info.Mail deliveries. The post office then showed itself to be cooperative and stopped the violation. The application for a fine that has now been submitted is now the follow-up to the proceedings.
“The application was specifically based on the abuse of market power that was legally established in the individual proceedings through the discriminatory discount practice of Österreichische Post AG for the Info.Mail area,” the authority said in a statement.
The listed Post said today: “We are currently in discussions with the authorities to reach an agreement, a so-called settlement. We are confident that we can achieve a fair result.” In this case, Swiss Post acted in good faith based on similar practices in other European countries.
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