As we reported earlier this year, the alleged illegal cabotage transports occurred in 2019 and 2020 and mainly concerned the way that Girteka Logistics was switching trucks. You can read more details here.
After the allegations came to light, Girteka Logistics expressed confidence it would win the case.
“We are very positive about the upcoming dispute in court, because we believe that the fines were written incorrectly for international and not the cabotage operations. (…) The fines imposed are relatively small, but we are challenging them in order to bring more transparency and clarity to the Norwegian market, which is important to us, ” said Simonas Bartkus, Head of Marketing and Communications at Girteka Logistics, in an interview with the BNS press agency in January of this year.
Curious to find out what had happened regarding the case, Norwegian road transport website Tungt.no checked public court documents related to the case. In the process of doing so, the team’s journalists discovered that Sogn og Fjordane District Court had confirmed new dates for the trial. The case will now be heard from the 15th to 17th of June.
Interestingly, the Tungt.no team also discovered in those documents that Robert Aksnes was stated as Girteka’s defence lawyer in the trial. This came something as a surprise, as Aksnes has for a number of years been linked to the Norwegian Truck Owners’ Association, who have often scrutinised Girteka’s operations in Norway.
However, according to Tungt.no, the man himself denies this is true. Aksnes told the Norwegian road transport website “It is not me who will be the defence lawyer in the case that is scheduled for June.”
Photo: Susanne Nilsson from Trelleborg, Sweden, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
.jpg){kind=link}