At present, the provision of postal services is mainly regulated by Government Emergency Ordinance no.13/2013 on postal services, with the subsequent amendments and completions and by the Decision of the President of the National Authority for Management and Regulation in Communications no.925/2023 on the general authorisation regime for the provision of postal services, published in the Romanian Official Journal, Part I, no. 1175/ 27.12.2023.

The ANCOM  Decision no. 925/2023 lays down the authorisation procedure for those who intend to provide postal services, as well as the conditions under which the postal service providers benefit from the general authorisation regime in view of ensuring a free competitive market and of safeguarding the postal users’ interests.

The general authorisation regime allows the countrywide provision of postal services by the simple submission of a notification to ANCOM on the intention of the person concerned to provide these services.

The obligation to send the notification to ANCOM rests with any person who intends to offer, including by resale, postal services or to perform any of the operations consisting in the clearance, sorting or delivery of postal items.

The postal service provider has the right to conclude agreements stipulating the provision - by third parties - of certain services of clearance, sorting, transport or delivery of postal items.  The clearance, sorting and delivery of postal services can be performed directly by a postal service provider or indirectly, on behalf and on the account of the postal service provider, by means of either a person holding the capacity of postal service provider or a third party which does not have such capacity, based upon an agreement concluded in written form. In the latter instance, the liability in relation to the users for the provision of the postal service will be fully incumbent on the postal service provider which performs operations of clearance, sorting, transport or delivery of postal items through any third party that performs these operations on its behalf and on its account.

The provision of the postal services offered by a reseller of postal services can be performed only based on commercial contracts for the resale of postal services conclude in writing between the postal service providers, as actual providers of these services, and the reseller of postal services authorized by ANCOM in this respect, as reseller beneficiary.

The postal service provider which, including through an application available on a website, resells exclusively postal services is liable before the users for the provision of the postal service. The liability to the user cannot be transferred by the provider who exclusively resells postal services to the provider who provides for the reseller postal service component operations. 

We recommend to all interested persons and in particular to the postal service providers, as well as to the persons intending to provide postal services, to carefully read the provisions of Government Emergency Ordinance no.13/2013 and of the ANCOM President’s Decision no. 925/2023, in order to clearly identify all the rights and obligations they have or will have in their relation with the users, the integrators, the other postal service providers and ANCOM.