UPS vs. Polish Post – new law interpretation

Three years ago the Postal and Telecommunication Regulation Office (URTiP) conducted an inspection of the UPS courier company and found several packages weighing less than 2 kilograms. Since this type of parcel is classified as a letter, the first instance court decided that UPS had broken the terms of its permit (only the Polish Post (PP) can deliver such parcels). UPS appealed, stating that as their services are not available to the general public and only to big contractors, no transgression had taken place. Yesterday, Poland’s Supreme Administrative Court ruled that the URTiP was wrong. Nonetheless, PP will have a monopoly on several services. Postal services available to the general public have been reinterpreted, as have also terms such as “letter” and “package”. The URTiP has the right to inspect the content of parcels, so it is possible more changes will take place in the interpretations.