Brussels, 06/06/2001 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission sent the Belgian postal service operator, La Poste, a statement of objections for having violated the European competition rules. The Commission accuses La Poste of having granted its clients reductions on its traditional mail services, for which it has a legal monopoly, if they also subscribe to the new business mail service, which is launched at the beginning of 2000 and which competes with the document exchange service offered by Hays Management Services SA.
On 7 April 2000, the company decided to refer a complaint against La Poste to the European Commission. The complaint filed concerns the fact that La Poste had, with interesting reductions proposed for its traditional delivery services, stolen its customers. In the complaint, Hays, the only rival of La Poste in Belgium on this market, noted that, with a view to the increased liberalisation of postal services in Belgium, La Poste has undertaken to evince it from the Belgian market. It stresses, moreover, that the professional delivery services proposed by La Poste to the insurance companies and brokers are closely modelled on its own. After a preliminary inquiry, the Commission concluded that the new service of La Poste and that of Hays are part of one and the same reference market, namely a professional postal service proposed to a closed circle of users. They are therefore in direct competition. The Commission also provided proof of anti-competitive behaviour by La Poste which did away with the preferential tariffs for traditional mail services that it granted to companies and insurance brokers when the latter did not express an interest in its new service. This practice that makes the granting of a preferential tariff for the general service subject to the clients' acceptance of an additional contract relating to the new service of the professional delivery company runs counter to Article 82d of the EC Treaty (twinning of two different services) and hence gives rise to the opening of formal infringement proceedings. The Commission awaits La Poste's response before deciding whether proceedings should be continued or not and whether or not such behaviour should be banned, action that could possibly be accompanied by a fine.