Discount practice – discrimination: cartel court condemns Post

The reason for the legally binding decision is the abuse of the dominant market position in the field of addressed mass printing by the partially state-listed company. Accordingly, the Swiss Post has acted discriminatorily in its discount practices at Info.Mail by granting limited discount scales, smaller discounts or annual bonuses to certain customers.

“It also imposed a duty of confidentiality on Info.Mail in connection with discount scales and discount rates agreed with major customers,” the Federal Competition Authority (BWB) said in a statement on Tuesday. The cartel court ruled that Post’s market share on the Info.Mail market was more than 90 percent and that the company therefore had a dominant position.

Post was cooperative
As the BWB emphasized today, the postal service has fully cooperated with the authority and submitted a corresponding acknowledgment of receipt. “The company thus contributed to a faster completion of the procedure. The BWB has therefore requested the imposition of a reduced fine of 9.2 million euros,” the Federal Competition Authority said.

The cartel court’s decision was preceded by a request from several companies to put an end to abuse resulting from discriminatory discount practices by the postal service. Requests for an injunction were also filed. The antitrust judge rejected the requests for a preliminary injunction, but granted the request for an injunction. Consequently, the Postal Service challenged the antitrust court’s decision and appealed to the Supreme Court as an antitrust court. However, the court did not accept the appeal, according to the BWB.