The CNMC gives Amazon one month to register as a postal service in Spain.
End of a long investigation: On 28 September 2020, the Spanish National Commission for Markets and Competition (CNMC) completed an investigation into Amazon it had started in December 2018. The inquiry was aimed at finding whether Amazon was a postal service operator and therefore needed to comply with the relevant regulations in Spain. Amazon maintained that it doesn’t act as a postal service.
The CNMC rules that Amazon is a postal operator: The regulator noted that while Amazon is mainly an e-commerce business, it also carries out postal activities. It also does not limit such activities to self-provision, because its service is available to third-party retailers. Amazon will now have to register as a postal service within one month.
The CNMC is not the first regulator to reach this conclusion: In July 2018, the Italian regulator AGCOM concluded that Amazon was acting as a postal service without the relevant authorisation, and issued a fine of €300k. In July 2020, AGCOM also found Amazon to be dominant in the market for e-commerce delivery services, and is currently considering imposing remedies.
