EU Court Permits Deutsche Post to Charge Extra for Re-Mailing
Deutsche Post AG, Europe’s biggest postal service, can charge an additional fee for re-mailing letters in Germany sent from a foreign country, the European Court of Justice has ruled, according to a Bloomberg report.
The report said the decision is a blow to the growing practice of sending data electronically to a foreign country and re-mailing it to the home country to bypass expensive local postage rates, which are among the highest in Germany.
The ruling was also a setback for Citigroup Inc., the defendant in the case, who had set up a center in the Netherlands to dispatch standardized banking statements received electronically from its German unit in Frankfurt, the report said.
The mail was then handed over to PTT Post in Arnhem for distribution back to Germany, through Deutsche Post, and to other EU member countries, the report said.
