Estonia, Legislation, Post Office, Transport

After months of studying the merger plan, the Competition Board decided to take extra time to find out how strengthening of the position of Eesti Post affects the letter and postal shipments market. The board initiated an additional proceeding to find out if the merger would harm competition. The extra proceeding can take four months.

Estonian state-owned postal company Eesti Post concluded letters of intent for buying newspaper home delivery company AS Express Post with Eesti Meedia and Ekspress Grupp at the beginning of February and said the step was aimed at making Eesti Post’s home delivery service more effective.

Competitors and clients of postal firms do not approve of the merger though since with the transaction, Eesti Post would regain 100% of the letter delivery market. Seven large letter senders submitted an opposing claim against the merger to the Competition Board. Elisa Eesti AS manager Sami Seppänen said that he does not believe in anything but competition but competition would weaken as the result of that transaction.