DGCCRF fines three logistics giants: Kuehne+Nagel, Amazon and Transepi for late payments to subcontractors

The French market regulator, the Directorate General for Competition, Consumption and Combating Fraud (DGCCRF), has imposed significant fines on three major logistics operators operating in France: Kuehne + Nagel, Amazon France Logistique, and Transepi Logistique. The regulator's intervention stemmed from repeated and systematic failure to meet statutory payment deadlines for transport subcontractors. Audits revealed that delays averaged 15 days beyond the legal limit. For the hundreds of smaller transport companies that served these corporations, each additional day of waiting for payment translated into real financial losses and mounting liquidity pressures.

French payment deadline regulations – one of the strictest regimes in Europe

France consistently ranks among the European countries that most rigorously enforce payment deadlines in business relationships. The legal foundation is the Act. Loi de Modernization de l'Economie (LME), which precisely defines that the standard payment term in business-to-business transactions cannot exceed 60 days from the invoice date. This standard applies absolutely—regardless of whether we're dealing with a small regional freight forwarding company or a global corporation employing tens of thousands of people.

The DGCCRF serves as an active guardian of these rules. This body goes beyond passively accepting complaints—it conducts regular inspections, analyzes companies' invoices and payment practices en masse, and then publicly announces the results. A key element of the French regulatory approach is the so-called "name and shame" — The DGCCRF publishes full sanction decisions on its official website, identifying the sanctioned entities by name. This type of reputational damage can be more damaging for large companies than the financial sanction itself, directly damaging their brand image and relationships with business partners.

It's worth noting that similar regulations also stem from the European Directive on Combating Late Payment in Commercial Transactions (Directive 2011/7/EU), which obliges all member states to implement mechanisms to protect creditors against unjustified delays. However, France is an example of a country that has gone much further than the minimum EU requirements, building an extensive enforcement system.

Three penalized entities - risk profile

The case concerns three entities with very different characteristics, but one common denominator – a dominant position in the logistics market.

Kuehne+Nagel

The Swiss logistics giant, present in over 100 countries worldwide, is a leading global forwarding and warehousing operator. In France, Kuehne+Nagel serves an extensive network of transport subcontractors, including numerous road carriers from Central and Eastern Europe. The scale of the operation means that even systematic 15-day delays affect hundreds of invoices and tens of millions of euros annually—frozen in receivables from smaller partners.

Amazon France Logistique

The logistics arm of the global e-commerce giant operates on a completely different scale and operational specificity, but it makes equally extensive use of transportation subcontracting—especially in the areas of last-mile deliveries and fulfillment center operations. Delays from a capital-heavy player like Amazon are particularly surprising, but they also illustrate the mechanism by which large corporations—even with surplus funds—use their leverage to manage the payables cycle at the expense of their contractors.

Transepi Logistique

Less known internationally but significant locally, this logistics operator demonstrates that the problem of payment delays isn't limited to global corporations. Even entities operating primarily in the domestic market can employ similar practices, signaling a deeper cultural and systemic problem in managing liabilities to subcontractors.

Abuse mechanism - optimization at the expense of the weaker

To properly assess the gravity of this matter, it's worth understanding the economic mechanism behind large corporations' deliberate extension of payment terms. This practice has an elegant and cynical name in financial jargon: informal financing of working capital at the expense of suppliers.

The logic is simple: if a large company delays payment of invoices by 15, 30, or 60 days beyond the contractual deadline, it effectively forces its suppliers to provide free credit to its operations. Instead of using bank lines of credit—which are expensive—the corporation "borrows" cash from subcontractors who have no real power to refuse.rodoIn the context of high interest rates that Europe has experienced in recent years, the value of this unauthorized credit has become measurable and significant.

For a carrier who must fill tankers of fuel each week, pay drivers' salaries, settle trailer lease payments, and pay insurance premiums, every 15-day delay represents a significant cash flow gap. A transport company that normally operates on the verge of profitability with margins of 3-5% is forced to either resort to expensive revolving credit or risk losing its liquidity. The cost of financing this gap directly reduces already low margins and, in extreme cases, leads to bankruptcy.

A systemic problem in the TSL sector

This case is not an isolated incident—it's a symptom of a deeply rooted structural problem within the transportation, forwarding, and logistics industry. Relationships between large logistics operators and small and medium-sized carriers are characterized by a fundamental asymmetry of power.

On the one hand: global and domestic logistics companies with extensive networks, legal and financial departments, and, above all, access to numerous alternative subcontractors. On the other: transport companies, often family-owned, operating fleets of several or a dozen vehicles, without specialized legal services and with limited ability to diversify their clientele.

In this context, even a contractual 60-day payment term—though formally permissible—presents a significant challenge for a small carrier. Adding 15 days of actual delay to this, the total waiting time for payment exceeds 75 days. With a monthly turnover of hundreds of thousands of euros, almost all of a transport company's working capital is permanently tied up in receivables.

It's also worth noting the cascading effect: payment bottlenecks spread throughout the supply chain. Carriers, waiting for payment themselves, delay settling their own liabilities to gas stations, tire suppliers, and service centers. The problem multiplies and intensifies at every level of the chain.

Polish and Eastern European carriers at the center of the threat

Polish transport companies are leaders in European road freight transport—according to Eurostat data, they handle nearly one-third of all cabotage and cross-border transport in the European Union. France is one of the key operating markets for Polish carriers, both in transit transport and in providing direct services to local clients.

The fact that such prominent entities as Kuehne+Nagel and Amazon France Logistique have been fined for systemic delays must be a wake-up call for the Polish transport industry. A contractor's large logo and market reputation do not guarantee timely payment. History shows that it is corporations with a strong negotiating position that are most likely to use payment terms as a tool to manage their own liquidity.

Polish and Eastern European transport companies that handle orders from large Western European logistics operators should immediately review their credit risk assessment procedures. A standard financial health check of a contractor—even if it demonstrates solid results—does not provide a complete picture of risk if it does not include an analysis of the entity's payment history.

How to verify the payment risk of large operators?

For risk managers and transportation company owners, building proactive early warning systems is crucial. Below, we highlight specific resources and methods worth incorporating into routine due diligence procedures:

• DGCCRF Sanctions Registers — The management regularly publishes penalty decisions on its website. Monitoring these announcements should be standard procedure for anyone considering or maintaining a relationship with a major logistics operator in France.
• European company verification platforms — tools such as EURODEBT.eu aggregate data on the payment discipline of entities from various European countries, allowing for risk assessment in a cross-border context.
• Business intelligence — reports by Dun & Bradstreet, Coface, Atradius and CRIF regularly contain information on the payment indicators of the surveyed companies, including deviations from the declared deadlines.
• Industry networks and associations — exchanging information on payment experiences with other carriers, within organizations such as ZMPD, TLP or GEFCO, can provide valuable advance signals.
• Analysis of billing patterns — systematically tracking your own receivables and identifying subcontractors who regularly pay close to or after the due date, even before the situation becomes critical.

Recommendations for transport companies - payment risk management

Based on the analysis of the described case and broader trends in the European TSL sector, we recommend implementing the following practices:

• Trade receivables insurance — Trade credit insurance policies offered by Coface, Atradius, Euler Hermes (Allianz Trade), and KUKE provide effective protection against losses in the event of insolvency or prolonged delays on the part of the client. The cost of such a policy, calculated as a percentage of turnover with a given counterparty, is incomparably lower than the potential loss resulting from non-payment.
• Receivables factoring — Factoring services allow you to convert receivables into cash almost immediately after invoice issuance, eliminating liquidity risk regardless of when the customer actually pays. In the non-recourse factoring model, the factor assumes the risk of insolvency.
• Calculation of statutory interest — EU Directive 2011/7/EU and national regulations give creditors the right to charge interest for each day of delay and to demand lump-sum compensation for debt recovery costs. Consistent use of these rights—even with large contractors—changes the balance of power and signals that the company is not a passive participant in the game.
• Contract clauses on accelerated payments — negotiating a provision on the possibility of calculating a discount for early payment or, conversely, automatic initiation of the debt collection procedure after the agreed delay period has elapsed.
• Diversification of the customer portfolio — Revenue dependence on one or two large clients dramatically strengthens their negotiating position and eliminates the possibility of effective debt collection. Diversification is not just a growth strategy—it's a fundamental risk management tool.

The broader context – is this a problem across Europe?

Although the DGCCRF is a French institution, the problem of late payments in the logistics sector is pan-European. Intrum research (European Payment Report) consistently shows that the transport and logistics industry is among the sectors most affected by late payments—both in terms of frequency and the value of outstanding receivables.

In Poland, the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection (UOKiK) has similar powers to impose fines for prohibited commercial practices, including excessive payment delays. However, the scale of the Polish regulator's activity in this area remains significantly more modest than that of the DGCCRF. In Germany, the Netherlands, and Scandinavian countries, the culture of prompt payment is generally higher, although even there—particularly in relationships with large e-commerce platforms and 3PL operators—systematic violations occur.

The ongoing consolidation of the logistics market in Europe means that the negotiating position of transport subcontractors will weaken rather than grow in the coming years. Acquisitions and mergers are creating even more powerful entities, which have even greater bargaining power over their service providers. In this context, the actions of bodies such as the DGCCRF are of crucial systemic importance – without active regulation, the market itself will not generate mechanisms to balance this asymmetry.

Business Risk Perspective - Conclusions for Decision Makers

The case of three fined logistics operators in France should prompt risk managers and owners of transport companies to reflect on several fundamental issues.

First: Payment risk is not only a problem for small or financially weak contractors. Kuehne+Nagel is a publicly traded company with billions in revenue. Amazon is one of the world's largest corporations. Their delays were not due to a lack of funds, but to a conscious choice in working capital management. This fundamentally changes the methodology for assessing credit risk—a company's financial picture alone is not enough; an analysis of its history and payment culture is necessary.

Secondly: Regular monitoring of sanctions and regulatory announcements in the countries where we operate or from which our contractors come is now a necessity, not an option. This information is publicly available and free of charge – it is just a matter of implementing appropriate procedures to systematically track it.

Thirdly: Passive acceptance of delays perpetuates bad practices. Transport companies that don't charge interest, don't insure receivables, and don't pursue claims are effectively financing large clients with their own capital, signaling that such a practice is acceptable. A proactive approach by creditors, supported by knowledge of the law and available instruments, is the only effective response to the systemic imbalance of power.

The DGCCRF's intervention demonstrates that the European regulatory system—though imperfect—can operate effectively. However, it is crucial for transport companies serving the European market not to wait for the regulator, but to build their own resilience to payment risk through active receivables management, portfolio diversification, and the use of available credit protection instruments.