Recently, many road hauliers have received letters from their customers urging them to modify their agreements on the indexation of transport service prices in line with changes in the cost of diesel fuel, a process often referred to as diesel indexation. Far from wishing to interfere in commercial relations, the National Road Transport Committee feels compelled to respond because it is implicated in some of these letters.

In particular, a letter from Danone Waters, addressed to 122 transporters according to them, states: «Regarding the diesel indexation methods, we have identified an error, confirmed by the CNR, in the application of the complex TICPE system». The CNR has officially questioned Danone Waters on this point. Danone Waters cannot explain or justify in any way how the CNR could be involved in such an error and how it could have «confirmed» it.

This false statement obviously undermines the credibility of the CNR and constitutes defamation as defined and punishable under Article 23 of the Law of 29 July 1881.

In the same letter, Danone Waters included a table of figures to support its claims, under which it stated «Source: CNR» exclusively. The CNR has never published such a table. More than half of the figures in this table are internal calculations by Danone Waters. The others are official figures published in the Official Journal of the French Republic, which the National Road Committee has reproduced in certain documents.

Such a montage constitutes the criminal offence of forgery and use of forged documents, as defined and punishable under Article 441-1 of the Criminal Code.

Such allegations cause undeniable harm to the National Road Committee, an organisation defined in Article L3222-2 of the Transport Code as the source of economic benchmarks to be used in the context of diesel indexation.

These benchmarks are published on the CNR website, the only official channel for their dissemination. The website also features an educational note on diesel indexation, which is updated every month.