He was supposed to be a role model, but racked up 369 violations. A painful review of the Fair Transport certification

The case was reported by Swedish industry magazine Trailer. What makes it particularly significant is not just the number of irregularities, but the status of the company involved: it held a Fair Transport certificate.

The scheme is more than a conventional marketing badge. Fair Transport is a Swedish certification scheme for road freight operators backed by Sveriges Åkeriföretag. Its goals include fair competition, responsible working conditions, road safety and reducing transport’s environmental impact.

Participating companies update their data and documentation every year, while an independent external audit is carried out every three years. The scheme also includes procedures for responding to identified non-compliance.

On paper, that makes Fair Transport considerably more substantial than a simple promotional claim.

That is precisely why the discovery of 369 violations prompts a difficult question: how wide can the gap be between the standard assessed during certification and the findings of a state authority examining tachograph and driver-card data in detail?

The programme was intended to distinguish responsible carriers

The contrast is especially striking because Fair Transport was presented from the outset as a response to specific problems in the road transport market.

When Trans.INFO covered the scheme’s development in 2020, its creators pointed directly to companies that breached market rules. The issues cited included cabotage violations, driving and rest-time breaches, unpaid road charges and taxes, and lower social standards. Fair Transport was intended to highlight operators that complied with the law and accepted standards of corporate responsibility. The messaging also stressed that customers choosing a certified company were selecting a carrier that not only met legal requirements but also reported its results openly and accepted responsibility for continuous improvement.

The certificate was intended to send shippers a clear message: this carrier does not build its competitive advantage by bending the rules.

The case involving 369 violations shows how wide the gap can become between a certificate-based assessment and the findings of a detailed review of actual tachograph data.

A penalty of 593,000 Swedish kronor

According to information published by Trailer, Transportstyrelsen imposed a penalty of 593,000 Swedish kronor, equivalent to around 236,000 Polish zloty.

The inspection identified 369 breaches of social legislation and activity-recording requirements, including:

• 62 instances of driving for more than 4.5 hours without taking the required break;
• 48 cases involving incorrect daily rest periods;
• 45 breaches of the permitted driving limit over a two-week period;
• 37 instances of exceeding the 10-hour daily driving limit;
• 35 cases of insufficient weekly rest;
• 27 cases in which daily rest was reduced below the permitted minimum;
• 32 failures to enter the country symbol at the start or end of work;
• 23 cases involving improper use of driver cards or record sheets, or failure to use them correctly.

The scale of the findings meant that the authority did not treat the matter as a collection of isolated mistakes.

Transportstyrelsen pointed to the carrier’s previous penalties and insufficient internal supervision. Given the nature and number of the breaches, the authority concluded that a warning alone would not be appropriate.

A certificate does not guarantee zero violations

This is the key takeaway for logistics managers. Fair Transport can help shippers identify partners that state and document responsible business practices, but it does not guarantee that every shipment handled by a certified carrier is compliant. Certification and state enforcement operate in different ways. Fair Transport assesses whether a company meets the programme’s criteria and has the required procedures, documentation and organisational arrangements.

Transportstyrelsen, by contrast, can analyse driver-card and tachograph data for a specific period, reconstructing actual working time and checking compliance with individual legal obligations. A certificate therefore confirms that certain criteria were met during the certification process. It is not a system for continuously monitoring a carrier’s operations.

This is not the first such case in Sweden

The incident reported by Trailer is not the first time a company connected with Fair Transport has come under scrutiny from Swedish authorities.

Tommy Nordbergh Åkeri (2022): following an inspection, the calculated penalty was approximately 3.5 million Swedish kronor, or around 1.39 million Polish zloty. Statutory limits reduced the final amount to 800,000 Swedish kronor, equivalent to about 319,000 Polish zloty, a figure later upheld by the court. Fair Transport representatives said the company’s profile was suspended until it submitted an approved corrective action plan.

Erikssons Åkeri group / Megit AB (2024): Transportstyrelsen initially calculated penalties of 5.358 million Swedish kronor, or approximately 2.14 million Polish zloty. Statutory limits ultimately reduced the amount to around 383,000 Swedish kronor, or about 153,000 Polish zloty. The inspection included cases in which drivers used other people’s cards. Another company from the same group, Eriksson Greenroad, had previously been removed from the Fair Transport programme.

Hundreds of violations do not automatically mean deliberate fraud

The number 369 is alarming, but it needs to be interpreted carefully. Rules covering working time, driving, rest periods and tachographs contain many separate obligations, and not every breach carries the same weight.

Some findings may involve formal errors, such as failing to enter the required country symbol.

Others relate directly to driving time and rest, with clear implications for driver and road safety.

Since the beginning of 2026, Transportstyrelsen has been able to issue a warning in cases considered less serious. That option is not generally used where breaches are repeated or serious, where similar penalties have already been imposed, where the rules appear to have been systematically circumvented or where internal supervision is inadequate.

The figure of 369 should therefore not automatically be read as 369 deliberate acts of fraud.

That qualification does not change the central issue. When the number of breaches is this high, the effectiveness of the company’s internal controls becomes impossible to ignore.

Where does the certificate’s role end?

Fair Transport openly acknowledges that it does not automatically receive information about every inspection or penalty issued by the police, Transportstyrelsen or other authorities. Once the organisation learns of a problem, it can begin a review concerning non-compliance, suspension or removal from the scheme.

This means that, for a period of time, a company found by a state authority to have committed serious violations may still appear in the public register as certified. That does not automatically prove that the entire system is defective. It does, however, demonstrate one of its limitations: a quality label is not the same as real-time oversight of a carrier’s day-to-day operations.

Shippers still need to carry out their own checks

Importantly, Fair Transport itself does not tell customers to end their due diligence once they see the certificate.

Materials aimed at clients recommend, among other measures:

• checking that the certificate is still valid;
• requesting appropriate documentation;
• carrying out spot checks;
• monitoring compliance throughout the contract;
• holding review meetings with the carrier.

In other words, even the scheme’s creators present certification as one part of carrier due diligence, not as a substitute for it.

A filter, not immunity

In 2020, Fair Transport was intended to help distinguish responsible carriers from companies that undermined fair competition. The latest case shows that a certificate alone cannot maintain that distinction.

For shippers and freight forwarders, Fair Transport may still be a useful filter when selecting business partners. It is not proof that every transport operation performed by a certified company complies with the law. The case involving 369 violations therefore says less about the certificate’s total value than about its limits.

The Fair Transport logo can be a starting point for checking a carrier, but it should never replace the shipper’s own compliance audit or verification of the conditions in which transport services are actually performed.