ANNUAL REPORT 2010 - Konkurentsiamet

POSTAL SERVICES
The year 2010 did not bring about any significant changes in the postal services market.
The universal postal service (hereinafter referred to as UPS) was provided for affordable
fees defined by the Minister of Economic Affairs and Communications. In order to
compensate for any possible unreasonably encumbering costs that the providers of UPS
may bear, the funding obligation was borne by the companies providing postal services
based on activity licences.
D2D terminated its activities in the year 2010 and therefore there were two providers of
postal services with a financing obligation in 2010 (AS Eesti Post hereinafter referred to as
Eesti Post and AS Express Post hereinafter referred to as Express Post). No activity licence
applications were submitted for the provision of postal services.
There were also no significant changes in the market of such postal services that do not
require an activity licence in the year 2010. Similar to previous years, a few providers of
courier services were removed from the register of economic activities, because they no
longer provided the service. At the same time, five new providers of courier services, two
direct mailing service providers and one forwarder of periodicals were registered in the year
2010.
As of 31 December 2010, there were 38 providers of one or more postal services registered
in the register of economic activities. There was one provider of UPS (pursuant to the Postal
Act there can only be one such provider), two licensed forwarders of items of
correspondence, one licensed forwarder of postal parcels, 35 providers of courier services,
10 providers of the direct mail service and six forwarders of periodicals. However, not all of
the above mentioned undertakings provided postal services in reality.
Pursuant to its five-year activity licence, Eesti Post was also the provider of UPS in the year
2010. Eesti Post used its right, arising from the Postal Act, to send quarterly applications to
the Competition Authority for receiving compensation for unreasonably encumbering costs
arising from the obligation to provide UPS. Proceedings relating to the applications of the
year 2010 are still not completed, because the company has failed to explain the emergence
of unreasonably encumbering costs (throughout different quarters, the company has
continuously changed its cost allocation principles, it has failed to take into account the
Competition Authority’s “Methodology of valuation of costs of the provider of universal
postal service”, and upon finding a reserve volume, the company has not been guided by
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