Recently, two separate courts in Spain and France ruled in favour of CHEP, the global leader in pallet and container pooling, in cases involving the illegal trading of its pallets. A court in Getafe (Madrid), Spain handed down a six-month prison sentence to a pallet recycler found guilty of attempting to sell CHEP equipment, despite having received correspondence from CHEP informing them that blue pallets were CHEP's equipment and they could not be bought or sold. In France, a man was given a 10 month suspended prison sentence and ordered to pay CHEP's costs, after being found guilty of stealing 2,500 CHEP pallets and selling them.
Within the European logistics supply chain, the illegal use of pooled pallets has been a reoccurring issue. These pooled pallets are managed by their owners, pooling companies such as CHEP, on a rental basis and provided to customers for the shipment of goods across the supply chain. CHEP, through its logistics network, collects the pallets, inspects and repairs them if necessary, before they are made available once more for issue to customers. These pallets are never sold and only rented out, with CHEP maintaining its property rights over the pallets. To ease identification, CHEP pallets are painted blue and are marked with the corporate logo and stamped "Property of CHEP".
However, there are some pallet traders/dealers that, despite the unquestionable ownership of the pallets, choose to operate illegal pallet pools of CHEP branded equipment. The courts throughout Europe have consistently ruled that such practices are illegal and, in some circumstances, that the offence would justify a criminal prosecution.
"These rulings reconfirm the illegality of these pallet pools that illegitimately use CHEP proprietary assets. CHEP will continue to pursue, through the appropriate legal channels, the operators of these pools to protect CHEP interests, as well as the interests of the whole supply chain across Europe," said Giuseppe Sanna, Senior Vice President, General Counsel, CHEP Europe.