Russian Post car on a country roadMOSCOW, Jan 25The Moscow Arbitration Court supported the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) of the Russian Federation, which admitted that Russian Post JSC illegally established a 100% surcharge on the cost of parcels to hard-to-reach regions, follows from the published court decision. By its order, Russian Post approved and introduced into effective from October 1, 2019 tariffs for the forwarding of domestic parcels. An addendum to the order introduced a surcharge of 100% to the amount of payment for the entire mass of the parcel in the event that the parcels are sent from post offices located in settlements that are temporarily or year-round inaccessible, or to these offices. The Federal Antimonopoly Service of May 27, 2021 recognized the establishment of allowances as illegal.»Post» is testing packaging for the delivery of Russian wine «Post» challenged the decision of the Federal Antimonopoly Service in court. She, in particular, pointed out that the decision violates her rights in the field of entrepreneurial activity and is the basis for imposing a substantial fine. At the same time, the company announced the absence of a dominant position in the market, high competition and a low entry threshold. In particular, the Russian Post referred to the emergence of such companies with an extensive infrastructure and a network for receiving and issuing parcels, such as SberLogistics, which operates through Sberbank branches, and 5 Post, a subsidiary of X5 Retail Group. The court, rejecting the application of the Post Russia», agreed with the arguments of the FAS that the market for the delivery of goods from marketplaces does not coincide with the market for sending parcels. At the same time, taking into account the shares of Freight Link (Pony Express), KSE, SDEK-LK, DHL International and other delivery services, Russian Post retains its dominant position. Thus, its share in 2020 was estimated at 71.5%. The court also took into account that the tariffs for the delivery of letters are regulated by the state, and the delivery of both letters and parcels is carried out by the same transport, so the establishment of surcharges is not technologically justified. In addition, the profitability of sending parcels exceeds the profitability in the field of telecommunications by 1.9 times, and the profitability in the field of postal services — by 6.8 times, the court noted. Russian Post annually receives about 2.5 billion letters and invoices and processes about 365 million parcels. It has 42 thousand post offices throughout the country. The Russian Federation owns 100% of the company's shares.
