Delivery of letters: Authorities cannot keep an eye on the post office
After a court ruling, the state cannot check for years whether Deutsche Post delivers letters quickly enough. As shown in the documents Federal Network Agency As can be seen, the supervisory authority ultimately lost a legal dispute with a market research company that had sued at the Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court.
That is why the Federal Network Agency is not allowed to place an order for a so-called runtime check with 60,000 test letters per year for the time being. Instead, a new procurement process must be started, which should not be completed before 2027. Since the reviews always have to cover a full calendar year, they could not start until 2028 at the earliest. The documents are available to dpa.
As a result of the legal dispute, the Federal Network Agency will probably not be able to fulfill its legal mandate to keep an eye on the post office’s letter delivery times and to impose fines in the event of significant misconduct for three years – from 2025 to 2027.
Post adheres to requirements
There is currently no sign of such possible misconduct: According to the postal service, the legal requirements for letter delivery times are being adhered to. 95 percent of the letters posted today must reach the recipient within three working days; according to the post office, that was 97.4 percent in 2025. 99 percent must be there after four days; in 2025, according to Post, it was 99.0 percent. However, this company information has no relevance for the Federal Network Agency, as the authority requires data from a market researcher it has commissioned. The authority cannot currently get it.
The market research company, which prevailed before the Higher Regional Court, also works for Deutsche Post with other transit time checks. The Federal Network Agency therefore excluded the company from the bidding process as not being independent. According to the court, this is not proportionate. A possible conflict of interest could be counteracted by information barriers, the judges argued.
The Federal Network Agency writes that it will now “design a new tender taking into account the specifications of the Public Procurement Senate”. “A Europe-wide procurement process must be set up again and then carried out in accordance with the legal requirements.”
Politicians regret the consequences of the legal dispute. “A new procurement procedure is now needed as quickly as possible,” says the economic policy spokesman for the SPD parliamentary group, Sebastian Roloff. “We need the data in order to be able to check compliance with the legal requirements and, if necessary, make additional parliamentary adjustments.”
© dpa-infocom, dpa:260705-930-335283/2