Post offices act in dispute – Royal Mail & Deutsche Post

Post offices act in dispute
By Deborah Hargreaves in Brussels
Published: October 19 2000 18:48GMT | Last Updated: October 20 2000 17:17GMT

Deutsche Post, the German state postal operator, on Thursday reached agreement with the UK’s Royal Mail in a dispute about international bulk mail.

But the British post office said it would continue to pursue its complaint about Deutsche Post with the European Commission. The Commission also said it would continue its investigation into Deutsche Post’s business practices.

“We are certainly interested to see what Deutsche Post is doing, but it does not automatically put an end to our investigation,” the Commission said. “If we find these practices have been applied over a number of years, we can still act.”

Royal Mail complained to the Commission two years ago that Deutsche Post was imposing a surcharge on international bulk business mail sent to Germany from Britain, which incurs lower postal costs than bulk shipments sent within Germany itself.

The German post office, which has the highest stamp prices in the EU, had classed the shipments as internal German business mail that was being re-routed via the UK to save money.

Royal Mail, however, said it was sending business mail by international companies from outside Germany for delivery in Germany.

“We have reached an agreement that our mail will not be interrupted, but we have not resolved the issues at the heart of the complaint and these still need to be addressed,” the UK post office said on Thursday.

The German government is planning an initial public offering of Deutsche Post shares on November 20. The postal operator has been trying to resolve its problems with the Commission, but the Commission has three inquiries open and these are unlikely to be dropped. It is investigating whether Deutsche Post has abused its dominant position in the market and whether it has received illegal state aid.

Deutsche Post said on Thursday it had addressed another of the investigations by changing the terms of its contracts with mail order companies. It said it would now negotiate modified contracts with its customers.

Commission officials will discuss the investigations with Deutsche Post on November 7.