The European Commission has approved the planned international mail joint venture between France’sLa Poste and Swiss Post on condition that Swiss Post sells its subsidiary in France to avoid
increasing La Poste’s dominance of the domestic market.With the merger of their respective cross-border mail activities, which was announced inDecember last year, the French and Swiss postal operators aim to further expand and develop theirinternational mail businesses, strengthening their competitive position and challenging majormarket players such as Deutsche Post.
The European Union’s antitrust regulator, which has been assessing the deal since May,expressed concerns that the transaction might have “might have reinforced La Poste’s dominance onthe French market for standard outbound international addressed mail delivery services offered tobusiness customers”. It feared less choice and possibly higher prices for customers with thedisappearance of a dynamic player on a market with shrinking volumes. Therefore, Swiss Post offeredto divest its unit operating in France.
EU Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia confirmed: “The commitments package includes thesale of Swiss Post International France to a third party. This will maintain the competitivedynamics in the international business mail market in France and customers will continue to benefitfrom choice and affordable services.”
“These commitments adequately address all competition concerns identified by the Commission.The Commission has therefore concluded that the proposed transaction will not significantly impedeeffective competition in the European Economic Area (EEA) or a substantial part of it. The decisionis conditional upon full compliance with the commitments, which will be monitored by an independenttrustee,” the European Commission stated.
To be owned equally by the two postal operators, the joint venture company with headquartersboth in Paris and Berne bundles all their cross-border activities with exception of inbound andoutbound mail shipments of La Poste in France and Swiss Post in Switzerland. The universal postalservice in both countries will not be included in the joint venture.
In concrete terms, the joint venture will provide international outbound business maildelivery services, mail preparation services, marketing for print media, contract logistics forprint media distribution, logistics services. The complete offering also includes express deliveryservices as well as freight forwarding and international standard business-to-consumer parceldelivery in various Member States all across the EEA.
The European Commission noted that it has the duty to assess mergers and acquisitionsinvolving companies with a turnover above certain thresholds (according to Article 1 of the MergerRegulation) and to prevent concentrations that would significantly impede effective competition inthe EEA or any substantial part of it.
The transaction was notified to the Commission on 11 May 2012. From the moment a transactionis notified, the Commission generally has a total of 25 working days to decide whether to grantapproval (Phase I) or to start an in-depth investigation (Phase II).
