The Dutch licensing authority NIWO has, for the first time, suspended the Community (Euro) licence of a transport undertaking after the company exceeded the penalty-point threshold in the European Register of Road Transport Undertakings (ERRU). The sanction was issued following an investigation by the Human Environment and Transport Inspectorate (ILT), which found that the operator no longer met the legal requirement of “good repute”.
According to NIWO’s official announcement, the inspectorate established that the company had accumulated enough serious infringements to surpass the ERRU points limit “by a considerable margin.” Because EU legislation obliges national authorities to take corrective action once the limit is exceeded, NIWO imposed a six-month suspension of the operator’s Euro-licence.
At the same time, NIWO declared the company’s transport manager unfit for a period of two years.
The identity of the company has not been published. A court has since provisionally suspended both sanctions following an appeal, with a final judgment expected in December.
What is ERRU?
ERRU, the European Register of Road Transport Undertakings, is a system that connects national registers of licensed transport companies across EU Member States. It enables authorities to exchange data on operators’ compliance records, including certain infringements committed in other countries.
The system plays a central role in determining whether a transport operator still meets the professional requirement of good repute, which is mandatory for holding a Community licence.
While the ERRU register has existed since 2013, the penalty-point system that allows authorities to suspend licences for exceeding infringement thresholds only became fully operational after the EU reforms introduced by Regulation 2016/403 and reinforced by the Mobility Package in 2022.
How the penalty-point system works
Under Regulation (EU) 2020/1055, specific infringements are assigned a number of ERRU penalty points. These points fall into three categories:
- Most Serious Infringements (MSI)
- Very Serious Infringements (VSI)
- Serious Infringements (SI)
Examples include falsifying tachograph data, manipulating emissions systems, dangerous overloading, and persistent violations of driving and rest-time rules.
Each infringement corresponds to a prescribed point value. The total threshold a company may accumulate depends on the size of its fleet: the more vehicles, the higher the limit.
When a company exceeds that threshold within a defined period, the competent authority — in this case NIWO — must reassess the operator’s good repute. If the proportionality test confirms the breach is sufficiently severe, the authority can suspend or withdraw the Community licence and can declare the transport manager unfit.
From warning to suspension
Although ERRU has been operating for years, NIWO states that this is the first time a Dutch transport company has had its Euro-licence suspended specifically because its ERRU points exceeded the legal limit.
Until now, Dutch authorities had issued warnings or imposed other corrective measures, but had not taken the step of suspending the licence solely on the basis of ERRU penalty points.
The case marks a notable development in how European enforcement tools are being applied and may signal a stricter approach towards operators whose compliance records repeatedly fall short.
