UK Royal Mail forced to retrain staff

The Royal Mail is being forced to train its sales staff in European competition law after its regulator decided two of its promotion schemes were anti-competitive.

The mail organisation had offered discounts on mailings to some of its customers to tempt them to send more catalogues. Postcomm, the mail regulator, issued an enforcement order, requiring Royal Mail to refrain from departing from its published tariffs without notifying it.

Yesterday, Postcomm said Royal Mail had breached two of its licence conditions designed to help competition in the mail market. “We have extensive powers to deal with anti-competitive behaviour, which we will not hesitate to use in any future case,” said Nigel Stapleton, mail regulator chairman, who has pledged to be tough on the incumbent monopoly.

“Postcomm is being very watchful that Royal Mail – which currently has over 99pc of the letters market – is not using its dominance, perhaps unwittingly, to freeze out competitors,” he added.

Royal Mail has now given three key undertakings to Postcomm. It will train all its sales staff in European and UK competition law and in the obligations of its licence. Its compliance officer will become more involved in promotional activity and any new promotions launched by Royal Mail will be subjected to a “promotion approval process” which will include regulatory and competition law approval at a senior level.

Royal Mail said that most of its promotional activity had been found compliant with its licence by Postcomm.