If the post office increases its postage, the state must approve it. A few years ago that happened wrongly, a court now ruled. What this means for the current postage is open.
Leipzig / Bonn (dpa) - With a judgment on a postage increase from four years ago, the Federal Administrative Court of the Federal Government and Deutsche Post missed a significant damper.
The Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig announced on Thursday that the postage increase for standard letters approved by the Federal Network Agency for 2016 was illegal. At that time, Deutsche Post had increased the postage for standard letters from 62 to 70 cents. In the meantime, this is 80 cents.
The Federal Association for Parcel and Express Logistics (Biek) had sued the Federal Republic, which is responsible for regulating Swiss Post as a universal service provider. The practical consequences of the decision - for example for the currently applicable postage - are still open. Post customers, however, should probably have no hope of getting overpaid postage from previous years. "The decision only takes effect against the plaintiff," said a post spokesman. All other postal customers could not make any claims based on the judgment.
The Federal Network Agency also referred to this - but announced that, after the reasons for the judgment had been given, it would examine what effects the judgment had on the approval of the currently applicable postage. A spokesman said that the content of the judgment was the same as the legal basis.
If, as a result of the judgment, the current letter postage is actually on the collar, this would be another damper for the post office. At the beginning of the year, the Bonn-based group had to give in to pressure from the Federal Network Agency and receive an increase in parcel postage for private customers.
Due to its dominant position, Deutsche Post is legally obliged to have postage increases approved by the Federal Network Agency. According to the Federal Government's order, this had set new standards for the first time in the complained increase: Instead of using Swiss Post's actual costs and profits on the German market, it was based on the profit margins of comparable companies in other countries. The court argued that this was not covered by the ordinance reduction in the Postal Act. With its decision, the Federal Administrative Court overturned the first judgment of the Cologne Administrative Court.
The complaining association Biek, in which Post's competitors organize themselves, welcomed the judgment as "groundbreaking". Actually, the association companies do not compete with Deutsche Post in the mail, but in the parcel area. Nevertheless, the association had filed a complaint against the increase in the postage due to the fact that, according to the association, this can be used to cross-finance the parcel services and thus influence competition in this market.
"The mail and parcel market must finally be strictly separated and a clear ban on the dumping of parcels must be introduced," said Biek chairman Marten Bosselmann. The postal law must therefore be modernized urgently. "It is now really time for federal politicians and regulators to base their post-political actions on clear, competition-friendly principles," continued Bosselmann.
The opposition in the Bundestag described the judgment as Leipzig as "slap in the face for the Federal Ministry of Economics". The economic policy spokesman for the FDP parliamentary group, Reinhard Houben, sees the problem in the state's participation in Swiss Post: "The federal government has deliberately broken applicable law in order to support its own company." A postal reform that would boost competition and fully privatize the company was overdue. "Peter Altmaier has to promote competition instead of sprucing up the post at the expense of consumers," said Houben.
The Greens called on the government to have postage increases checked again according to the old assessment bases. "With its amending regulation from 2015, the Federal Government created the basis for a profit surcharge that was too high. We have criticized it from the outset as an unreasonable burden for consumers," said the spokesmen for consumer and economic policy, Tabea Roessner and Katharina Dröge.
The Federal Ministry of Economics said that the reasons for the judgment had to be seen. One will "deal intensively with the decision".
Notice from the Federal Administrative Court
