AUSTRIAN CEP COMPANIES TO BE INVESTIGATED

The Austrian cartel authority is investigating various courier/ express/ parcels companies in Austria. They are accused of illegal price- fixing when the truck toll was introduced.

Austrian courier and express companies are thought to have agreed a uniform price increase when the truck toll was introduced at the beginning of the year. Austria’s cartel authority (Ostereichische Bundeeswettewerbs behorde/ BWB) is therefore stepping up its investigations into illegal price fixing among the nation’s private and state-owned parcel services.

Price rigging suspected
The cartel authority already sent an initial questionnaire to Austrian Post AG and the private parcel service providers at the beginning of January this year, and now the authority is working on “the next stage of the investigation” said BWB’s Stefan Fischer.
The investigation was precipitated by a uniform price hike of EUR 0.10- EUR 0.12 introduced by almost all Austrian CEP providers, following the launch of the truck toll. The suspicion of price-fixing is sustainable by the fact that all members of the CEP Forum (an industry association of all Austrian express parcels services) and have based their price increase on a report, which the forum commissioned from Sebastian Kummer, the head of the Institute for the Institute for the Transport Industry and Logistics at the University of Vienna. According to the cartel authority, the parameters on which the price increase was based will have to be investigated and it must also be established whether all parcel service providers can justify the increase.

Wais unperturbed
This week, Austria Post’s Director General Anton Wais seemed unperturbed about the investigation and asserted that price-fixing had not taken place. Furthermore, the toll- related rate increases had been approved at the highest level by the responsible pricing committee of the state’s mail and telecoms regulator, according to Wais. The extra cost generated by the truck toll are in any case higher than the revenue generated by the increase in parcel rates. Austria’s national post office has to pay for every one of its 500trucks that are in daily use- including those that transport letters even though the rates for letter post had remained unchanged since the beginning of the year, the Director pointed out.
Wais did not wish to comment on the credibility of the CEP forum. This question has to be answered by the Austrian Chamber of Commerce which established the body. Wais expects that the rate increase dispute will have to be settled by an expert reporter.