The Autoritá Garante Della Concorrenza E Del Mercato (“AGCM”), the Italian Competition Authority, recently ordered a group of transport and parcel services providers to pay an €8 million fine for engaging in an unfair commercial practice in breach of Articles 20, 21, 22, and 26 of the Consumer Code. The joint fine was imposed upon the GLS Group in Europe, General Logistics Systems Italy S.p.A., General Logistics Systems Enterprise S.r.l., and their parent company General Logistics Systems B.V. (“GLS Group companies”) for operating their “Climate Protect” environmental sustainability initiative in a non-transparent manner. While the initiative enhanced the companies’ green image, the Authority found that environmental statements made by the companies on the General Logistics Systems Italy S.p.A. website were “ambiguous and/or not sufficiently clear, specific, accurate, clear-cut and verifiable.”
Specifically, the Authority found that all General Logistics Systems Enterprise services subscribers, except for the companies’ top clients, were forced to join the “Climate Protect” program and pay for unwanted carbon offset certificates in connection with their deliveries, in amounts that were determined without verifying the costs that individual subscribers actually incurred. Furthermore, while customers were led to believe that GLS Group companies were contributing significantly to the program, an investigation revealed that subscribed customers and GLS Italy’s logistics partners were bearing all of the program’s costs while the GLS Group companies were taking in more cash than they paid to implement it. The Authority also determined that the companies’ communications regarding the carbon offset certificates and the certificates themselves were “misleading, ambiguous and/or false.”