Poste Italiane has been fined nearly €40 million by competition authorities for abusing itsposition as the dominant mail operator in Italy.
The country’s anti-trust authority (AGCM) announced yesterday it has imposed a fine of €39.4million on the state-owned postal operator following a complaint by the main mail competitor TNTPost Italy and ordered the company to stop the anti-competitive activities.
Poste Italiane had taken various measures since 2007 designed to keep competitors out of variousvalue-added segments of the Italian postal market, in particular services involving confirmeddelivery, time-certain delivery and pro-active notification. The anti-trust authority said thatPoste Italiane had won business by using ‘predatory pricing’ that did not take account of fullnetwork and operational costs. “This behaviour, which fell within a single strategy, also had theobjective of maintaining its dominant position in the bulk mail and registered mail markets,” theauthority stated.
In particular, Poste Italiane responded to TNT Post Italy’s launch of the ‘formula certa’, whichcreated an alternative delivery product, by introducing technical obstacles. Letters sent with thecompetitor that entered the Italian operator’s network were automatically sent back to the sender,not to TNT Post. The sender had to pay the full price, otherwise items would be destroyed. PosteItaliane also used aggressive pricing in the liberalised sector for added-value mail products bymaking offers that used the universal service network without including the relevant costs.
The antitrust authority cited several contracts that Poste Italiane had won using these methods,including the city of Milan and financial services firm Equitalia.
