Norway Post defends competition law claim
The German logistics company Schenker has made a claim for compensation against Norway Post.
The German logistics company Schenker has made a claim for compensation against Norway Post.
The claim is based on concerns by Schenker that Norway Post were allegedly in breach of competition laws after it introduced Post-in-Shops in the early 2000’s – in which Norway Post demanded exclusive rights for the delivery of packages in Norgesgruppen, Shell and certain Hakon and Co-op shops.
Norway Post said it would provide the EFTA Surveillance Authority (ESA) with its response before this date but refutes compensation claims by Schenker.
Norway Post’s CEO Dag Mejdell said: “We disagree with the ESA’s conclusions and as such there are no grounds for Schenker to demand compensation. We are sure that the ESA will change its conclusions once we have given Norway Post’s side of the matter.”
Norway Post said there were a number of reasons why it stipulated certain provisos in its agreements with individual shops, but the two most important reasons were:
* The establishment, development and introduction of Post-in-Shops as a new service concept in the Norwegian market carried with it significant business risks and costs.
* The provisos were necessary to ensure supply with respect to the concession requirements demanded for a national offer.
After what it described as a successful introduction of Post-in-Shops onto the Norwegian market, Norway Post said it removed such provisos to its Post-in-Shops agreements in 2006. At the same time it was developing the Post-in-Shops concept in Norway, it’s competitors were building up a comprehensive network for package delivery in Norway.
Norway Post also pointed out that even with more than 15,000 possible delivery sites for packages in Norway, it only ran Post-in-Shops in less than 10% of them and that it’s competitors have roughly the same number of delivery sites as Norway Post does.
