INTERNATIONAL MAIL EXPRESS ITALY/POSTE ITALIANE
PRESS RELEASE
PRESS RELEASE
The Competition Authority: a fine of 7.5 million euro has been imposed on Poste Italiane S.p.A for abuse of a dominant position in the incoming cross-border mail sector
At its meeting on 23 May 2002 the Competition Authority resolved that the Poste Italiane S.p.A. company had abused its dominant position in violation of art. 82 of the EC Treaty in its handling of cross-border mail entering Italy.
The proceeding had begun in April 2001 as a result of a complaint from the International Mail Express Italy SRL company. The investigation revealed that Poste Italiane S.p.A. had adopted a systematic policy of intercepting shipments of large quantities of mail from abroad without distinguishing between ABA remailings (namely, letters and invoices mailed by Italian operators (A) to Italian addressees (A) but via a foreign country (B), on the one hand, and ordinary cross-border mail, on the other.
By wrongly classifying ordinary cross-border mail as foreign remailing, Poste had been charging an unfair price for the service it actually provided.
Furthermore, in implementing this policy, which had continued for over a year, Poste Italiane S.p.A. had on numerous occasions retained correspondence in its international Sorting Offices without promptly delivering it. Sometimes, it even opened the intercepted correspondence, and in some cases had gone so far as to destroy the mail without notifying the sender. The Authority considered this to be unjustified, and tantamount to refusing to provide the mail delivery service, and disproportionate to the purpose of preventing the circumvention of the statutory monopoly vested in Poste Italiane S.p.A.
This abusive conduct practised by a company enjoying what is virtually a statutory monopoly in this sector was deemed to be particularly serious. The Authority therefore imposed an administrative fine of 7.5 million euro on the Poste Italiane Company.
Rome 30 May 2000