A transporter and a recycler were sentenced to prison terms and payment of compensation for the theft of reusable CHEP pallets from the company CHEP
Madrid – The Criminal Court number 3 of Cartagena, Murcia, issued a sentence on December 16, 2021, in which a carrier was sentenced to two years in prison and the payment of civil compensation for an amount of 45,000 euros, as guilty of a continued crime of theft. The same resolution sentenced a relative of the aforementioned carrier to 20 months in prison for a continued crime of receiving various effects, including pallets owned by CHEP.
The second defendant, “well aware of the illicit activity he was carrying out” fraudulently put CHEP pallets up for sale through a website.
CHEP follows a circular business model known as ‘pooling’, based on sharing and reusing its pallets and containers. Thus, CHEP’s clients, mainly producers of consumer goods, pay for the pallets they rent for the time they are used. Once the platforms are emptied at the points of sale, CHEP takes care of their collection, inspection and repair, and of introducing them back into the circuit for other clients.
The ownership of these reusable pallets, therefore, legally belongs to the CHEP company and cannot be marketed in other markets.
CHEP pallets are easy to recognize by their blue color, which is the same in all countries where the company operates, and by the inscription ‘Property of CHEP’. Therefore, the non-return or sale of these is an infringement that can be legally prosecuted in order to recover them. Furthermore, in today’s ever-changing environment, where pallet availability is key to keeping goods flowing, unreturned, illegally resold or destroyed pallets affect the entire supply chain.
This sentence ratifies the tendency of the courts in relation to these illegal practices that, in addition, threaten the environment, given that the removal of reusable pallets from the circular system to which they belong involves the manufacture of new pallets, with the consequent additional consumption of wood. or plastic. Therefore, in addition to environmental damage, CHEP pallet theft also adds costs to producers, retailers and ultimately end consumers.
“At CHEP we are unwaveringly committed to recovering our assets,” stated Vicente Vallina, Retail & Asset Director. This ruling shows that we are on the right track in protecting our business model, and therefore also the environment.”
Source: CHEP (Google Translate)
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