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Postal group DX delivers complaint on Royal Mail
The Scotsman
9 July 2007
Postal group DX has lodged a complaint with regulator Postcomm arguing
that rival Royal Mail had breached pricing regulations.
The UK's dominant postal operator could be faced with another fine if
Postcomm rules that it has broken the rules.
Under the current rules, Royal Mail is barred from lowering prices selectively
as it hurts emerging competition.
DX argued that Royal Mail avoided this by creating a new service which
it claimed was a niche market.
Royal Mail, which is headed by chairman Allan Leighton, was last year
fined £1 million by Postcomm for failing to ensure that it did not
gain an unfair commercial advantage over its competitors in the "access
to the last mile" market following complaints from competitors TNT,
Express, the dairies business and UK Mail.
And two years ago, the regulator found that Royal Mail's advertising
had breached competition regulations.
A DX spokesman said: "DX remains very concerned about competitive
behaviour by Royal Mail and urges Postcomm to act decisively to meet their
statutory duty to promote competition."
A spokesman for Royal Mail said: "Royal Mail is operating in a fully
competitive postal market and, in developing new products, Royal Mail's
approach is to ensure that we have fair, cost-reflective prices."
Any fine from Postcomm would be another blow for the company, which is
this week facing another national strike in a pay dispute.
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