Year: 2005

Deutsche Post is facing a demand by the country’s antitrust authority that it open up its own network to rival operators in the area of pre-delivery services for letters weighing under 100g. These include as collection and pre-sorting, among other activities. The authority has also demanded that the postal operator allow discounts to rivals in this area. Until now, it has allowed discounts only to large customers. Deutsche Post is planning legal action against the decision in the hope of delaying the change until the ending of its monopoly on letters in 2008.

Deutsche Post World Net AG expects its mail operations monopoly will face ‘completely noticeable competition’ only by 2007 at the earliest, a company spokesman said in reaction to the decision of the German Cartel Office to demand an end to its monopoly on letters weighing less than 100 grams. He said before this time, one could not expect that competitors would be able to use ‘the possibilities in all its latitude’ within its network. The Cartel Office today said Deutsche Post must open up its monopoly on the collection and sorting of letters weighing below 100 grams.

Germany’s Cartel Office has said Deutsche Post World Net AG must allow mail sorters and consolidators of letters weighing below 100 grams access to its delivery networks. The Cartel Office also criticised Deutsche Post for giving rebates of between 3 and 21 pct to its own major client firms for bulk mail contracts, which it does not offer to other mail service providers. ‘Through granting rebates, Deutsche Post is hindering competitors from entering the letter collection, pre-sorting and delivery market,’ it said, adding that this hurts small- and medium-sized companies’ whose letter volumes are too small to obtain a rebate. It said that Deutsche Post’s current exclusive license to distribute letters in Germany below 100 grams does not justify this kind of behaviour.