As reported in the Danish press, the haulier has agreed to pay a fine of DKK 2.8 million in connection with 410 illegal cabotage transports conducted by its German subsidiary.
HP Therkelsen had been charged with as many as 1,200 cases of illegal cabotage. However, this figure was reduced after a judicial EU Commission review determined the German subsidiary’s transport of empty return pallets within Denmark was not cabotage transport.
The illegal cabotage case reportedly dates back to 2019, when the police began monitoring HP Therkelsen’s trucks and subsequently searched the company’s office in Padborg.
In November of that year, HP Therkelsen also had to voluntarily resign its membership of Denmark’s ITD haulage association. The company reportedly made the move as pressure was mounting to have them thrown out.
Comments made in January 2020 suggest that the illegal cabotage trips may be a consequence of HP Therkelsen seeking to fuel up in Germany to avoid the higher cost of doing so in Denmark.
Peter Therkelsen, the company’s CEO, told TV SYD at the time that he was keen to switch to biogas but that the cost was prohibitive in Denmark:
“Gas trucks are more expensive in terms of purchasing, service and maintenance, and the tax on gas in Denmark means that when we start buying gas trucks, we must buy our fuel in Germany.”
Back in 2018, the haulage firm also spoke of how it had started to hire drivers from the Philippines due to a lack of interest among Danish truckers.
“We have eight Filipino drivers, because we cannot find qualified labour in Denmark or the rest of Europe. So if we do not hire Filipinos, we would have to reduce our fleet,” HP Therkelsen representative Mogens Therkelsen told TV SYD.
HPT’s director, Peter Therkelsen, is said to be relieved about the EU Commission verdict. He recently told jv.dk that had the return of pallets been deemed illegal cabotage, it would “have had a very significant impact on both us and the entire industry”.
The company nonetheless still had to accept its punishment for the remaining 410 cases of illegal cabotage.
“We strongly distance ourselves from the violations and have wanted to get to the bottom of the matter from the start, because fairness and honesty are hugely important to us as a company. Therefore, we have long since rectified the conditions that have given rise to errors, and we had already tightened our internal procedures back in 2019,” Peter Therkelsen is quoted as saying.