Deutsche Post outsources parcels
After the cartel proceedings of the EU Commission against Deutsche Post AG (DPAG; see ITJ 12/2001, page 13), the company has agreed to outsourcing its commercial parcel services to an independent company. This is meant to put a stop to the cross subsidizing which the EU Commission had objections to. That is to say, the liberalized parcel service may in future not be financed by earnings from the letter monopoly any more. If the new company is now provided with products and services by DPAG, the clearing prices have got to be transparent and orientate themselves on the market. This was a «suitable precaution for the competitors of DPAG in the commercial parcel service sector», said the competition authority in Brussels. One of DPAG’s competitors, United Parcel Service (UPS), initiated the proceedings against the postal service seven years ago by filing a complaint against it with the Commission. At UPS, the satisfaction now is great: the fine of EUR 24 million, which Deutsche Post has to pay because it abused its position as a market leader in the parcel service sector by giving the mail order business aggregated rebates does not play the most important role for UPS. The International Road Transport Union (IRU) estimates the result of the Commission’s investigations to be «a milestone on the way to European competition». And DPAG itself is glad for its shareholders that the situation is now clear again. The magic word here is security of planning. The fine plays a less important role in this respect, the more so as more than EUR 25 million have been put aside for exactly this purpose. The new subsidiary is planned to start operations in January 2002 with several hundred employees and should achieve a revenue of EUR 1.5 and 2 billion, says the German postal service.
(Source: INTERNATIONAL TRANSPORT JOURNAL)
