In our new TransporTrends series, we provide information together with the Kompetenznetz Logistik.NRW / LOG-IT Club e.V. we regularly inform about current topics, decisions and trends in transport and logistics law – here about errors regarding group licenses, group works traffic and commission agent regulations.
Do you sell products that need to be transported to your customers? Then you are obliged to make sure that you have the necessary transport permits/transport licenses. Today we want to explain typical errors in this context. Because mistakes do not protect you from fines.
In the case of error no. 1, the client overlooks the fact that the transport license – which he has dutifully had presented to him – has not been issued for the transporting company. There is often a similarity in name as well as a connection between the company holding the license and the company actually transporting the goods.
- Transport licenses do not apply across group boundaries. Therefore, when commissioning transport companies, make sure that the transport license is actually issued to this company and not to a sister, subsidiary or parent company.
Mistake no. 2 concerns transportation within a group of companies. Within a group of companies, it is often not clearly differentiated which company carries out transportation for which company. The error consists of the assumption that transportation within a group of companies always qualifies as transport for own account. A transport permit is not required to carry out own-account transport. However, it should be noted that
- Group transportation is not automatically transportation for own purposes. The transportation of goods by a legally independent company for another, also legally independent company, is not considered transportation for its own purposes even if the two companies belong to the same group.
Error no. 3 concerns the regulation according to which the transportation of goods by commercial agents, commercial brokers and commission agents is subject to the regulations on own-account transport. Here it is sometimes overlooked that the regulation is linked to the condition that a motor vehicle is used whose payload, including the payload of a trailer, must not exceed 4 tons.
- If your commercial agents, commercial brokers and commission agents do not have a transport license and rely on the extended own-account transport regulations for transport, make sure that only motor vehicles whose payload, including the payload of a trailer, does not exceed 4 tons are used. Otherwise, a transport license is required.
It is not a mistake, but true that transport with vehicles that have a total weight / total mass including trailer of no more than 3.5 tons does not require a transport license.
The author and your usual contacts will be happy to answer any questions you may have!
Gisela Hebrant, LL.M.
hebrant@tigges.legal
+49 211 8687 185