Eleven companies, one sector, no coincidence
The Commerce Commission has just handed down $1.225 million in combined penalties against two courier companies for cartel conduct, while simultaneously issuing formal warnings to nine additional businesses for conduct it believes likely breaches the Commerce Act. That is eleven companies caught up in a single enforcement round in a sector the regulator has already taken to court five times in the past 15 years.
Aramex was fined $700,000 and GoSweetSpot $525,000 in separate Auckland High Court hearings. The two cases are unrelated. The companies did not enter into arrangements with each other but each separately colluded with different competitors. When two unconnected companies in the same industry are independently caught doing the same thing, the problem is structural.
What they actually did
Both cases involved customer allocation, where competitors agree to carve up the market so they are not chasing each other’s clients. Aramex’s contract also included price fixing provisions. The offending occurred in 2021, meaning businesses in the affected segments spent five years in a distorted market with no way of knowing it.
Aramex’s defence was revealing. The company’s counsel argued it was “genuinely unaware that it was in competition with its reseller”. The offending was attributed to a national sales manager using careless template documentation, not a boardroom conspiracy. Even the Commission’s own lawyer, Fionnghuala Cuncannon, described the Aramex case as “not a hardcore cartel” while still calling it significant. Justice Tracey Walker fined them $700,000 anyway.
That framing, soft cartel but still illegal, captures the problem. These are not back-room price-fixing meetings between CEOs. They are anti-competitive clauses baked into standard contracts, which is arguably worse because it means the behaviour is normalised.
A market built for this
The courier sector’s structure practically invites these arrangements. At the top sit two dominant players. NZ Post, a state-owned enterprise delivering over 300 million items annually, is the largest by volume. Freightways Group, listed on the NZX and ASX with an enterprise value of approximately $1.8 billion, operates at least six courier brands including New Zealand Couriers, Post Haste and Castle Parcels. Businesses that think they are getting competitive quotes from different providers may be quoting from the same company.
Below these two sits a tier of operators and resellers, where the competitive boundaries are murky by design. When you are both a courier network and the parent of resellers who deliver under your pricing framework, the line between vertical relationship and horizontal collusion gets very thin.
The problem is not confined to domestic parcels. In 2022, the Commission issued a formal warning to 360 Logistics Group for non-compete agreements in international freight forwarding. The pattern extends across the supply chain.
Fines that amount to a rounding error
Commerce Commission chair Dr John Small called the courier industry “a critical strategic role in New Zealand’s economy” and said the sector has been “an area of ongoing concern and focus” with five court cases in 15 years. He said the Commission expects these penalties to “bring about a change of behaviour”.
That expectation is optimistic. A combined $1.225 million across two companies in a sector that moves hundreds of millions of parcels annually is not a number that changes incentives. Five previous court cases did not change the behaviour. There is no reason to believe the sixth and seventh will either, unless the penalties start reflecting the scale of the harm.
What this means for anyone paying freight bills
For SMEs and online retailers, courier costs are one of the highest variable expenses after cost of goods. Inside Retail’s immediate coverage of this story reflects how directly last-mile delivery costs hit retail margins. If customer allocation reduced genuine price competition, businesses were paying rates set in a market where competitive pressure had been quietly removed.
The nine warning letters may matter more than the fines. Those businesses now know the Commission is watching. But the deeper issue remains untouched. A market dominated by two players, layered with reseller networks, and repeatedly caught engaging in anti-competitive behaviour is not a market that is working. Until the penalties match the problem, every business shipping parcels in New Zealand should assume they are paying more than they need to.
Sources
- RNZ: Courier companies fined over $1 million for cartel conduct (2026-03-05)
- NZ Herald: Courier cartel conduct: Aramex fined $700k, GoSweetSpot hit with $525k penalty (2026-03-05)
- Inside Retail: Courier businesses fined $1.2m for cartel conduct (2026-03-05)
- Daily Telegraph: Couriers ordered to pay $1.225 million after investigation into cartel conduct (2026-03-05)
- Chris Lynch Media: Courier companies fined $1.225 million after Commerce Commission cartel investigation (2026-03-05)
- Commerce Commission: Warning letter to 360 Logistics Group Limited (2022-10-31)
- Freightways and NZ Post Submission on Auckland Airport’s 2022-2027 Price Setting (2024-01-31)