ECJ Validates Bpost’s Quantity Discount System as Not Discriminatory

On 11 February 2015, the Court of Justice of the European Union ("ECJ") ruled on a request for a preliminary ruling from the Brussels Court of Appeal relating to the interpretation of the principle of non-discrimination laid down in Article 12 of Directive 97/67/EC of 15 December 1997 on common rules for the development of the internal market of Community postal services and the improvement of quality of service ("Directive 97/67/EC") (Case C-340/13, bpost SA v. Institut belge des services postaux et des télécommunications (IBPT)).

The ECJ held that, in applying the system of quantity discounts per sender, as introduced in 2010 by bpost, the Belgian incumbent postal services provider does not discriminate against so-called consolidators. Consolidators are third party operators who act as intermediaries between the original customer who generated the mail and the postal services. They provide services to bulk mailers ("senders"), such as the preparation of mail