Opinion of the Advocate General — ECLI:EU:C:2018:474
Date: 2018-06-20
Language of the case: Dutch

Request for a preliminary ruling from the Rechtbank Rotterdam (Netherlands) lodged on 15 May 2017 — Sandd B.V. v Autoriteit Consument en Markt (ACM) (Case C-256/17) Language of the case: Dutch Referring court Rechtbank Rotterdam Parties to the main proceedings Applicant: Sandd B.V. Defendant: Autoriteit Consument en Markt Other party to the proceedings: PostNL Questions referred 1) Must Article 14(2) of Directive 97/67/EC 1 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 December 1997 on common rules for the development of the internal market of Community postal services and the improvement of quality of service, as amended by Directive 2008/6/EC 2 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 February 2008 amending Directive 97/67/EC with regard to the full accomplishment of the internal market of Community postal services (the Postal Directive) be interpreted as meaning that it follows that national legislation must provide that universal service providers must, in their internal accounting, keep separate accounts for each of the services and products which are part of the universal service in order to be able to make a clear distinction between each of the services and products which are part of the universal service and services and products which are not part of such a service, or does it only follow from that provision that an accounting distinction must be made between, on the one hand, the services and products which are part of the universal service and, on the other hand, services and products which are not part of such a service? 2) Must the introductory paragraph and second indent of Article 12 of Directive 97/67/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 December 1997 on common rules for the development of the internal market of Community postal services and the improvement of quality of service, as amended by Directive 2008/6/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 February 2008 amending Directive 97/67/EC with regard to the full accomplishment of the internal market of Community postal services be interpreted as meaning that each individual service that is part of the universal service must be cost-oriented? 3) Does the requirement laid down in the introductory paragraph and second indent of Article 12 of Directive 97/67/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 December 1997 on common rules for the development of the internal market of Community postal services and the improvement of quality of service, as amended by Directive 2008/6 EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 February 2008 amending Directive 97/67/EC with regard to the full accomplishment of the internal market of Community postal services, that prices must be cost-oriented and give incentives for an efficient universal service provision preclude the adoption for an indefinite period of a fixed rate of return by which the costs of the universal postal services are increased having regard to tariff headroom? ____________ 1 OJ 1997 L 15, p. 14. 2 OJ 2008 L 52, p. 3.