11.05.2009

Sharp practices in Belgium

Belgian access rental company Heli has sent an open letter to Pierre Boels, chief executive of Dutch based rental company Boels Verhuur, following a bizarre event yesterday morning. The letter has been widely circulated in Belgium and sent to a number of industry publications.

According to Heli, as its employees prepared their trucks for the Monday morning deliveries of aerial lifts, they noticed that there were a number of people in cars waiting at the gates. Closer inspection revealed them to be employees of a competitor, Boels.
Please register to see all images

Some of the vehicles parked outside of Heli's yard

Please register to see all images

Some of the mystery drivers photographed as they wait for the trucks

As each delivery truck set off one of the Boels cars followed it to site, one assumes to make competitive counter offers or perhaps to gather competitive information?
Please register to see all images

A Boels car on the tail of a Heli truck

If there was any doubt about this action at all Heli sent out a series of photographs of some of the cars following its trucks along with the letter.

Here is the letter completely unedited:

Dear Mr. Pierre Boels,

We had absolutely no idea that our company HELI was that popular at Boels.

The Biezeweg in Wetteren, Belgium, almost looked orange this morning, filled with Boels company cars as it was, all waiting for a HELI truck to leave our depot, in order to follow it throughout the country.

In fact you should have been even more prepared, as we do have a second depot on the same industrial zone, where we have another 6 low boy trailers driving off to deliver platforms to jobsites all around Belgium, satisfying dozens of customers a day.

Next time you will be obliged to move up some reinforcements.

In anticipation of your answer to the reason for this stalking, we can inform you that we’ve officially lodged a complaint with the police department, and that we’ve called in our lawyer.

More important however was our decision to inform all our colleague rental companies, not only in Belgium but all over the world, about these despicable practices.

It goes without saying that HELI will not be dealing with the company Boels anymore.

We wish you a lot of success in these challenging times.


Sabine Le Roy
CEO

Vertikal Comment

April Fool? it woudl seem not, if true it is amazing that such a case should be publicised just days after we posted an editorial on the subject of what Australians call ‘White Anting’ which is what, at least on the surface, appears to be going on here.

Given the highly emotive and unusual nature of this story this might not be the best time to comment more fully. There surely has to be another side to it?

In the sprit of balance and fair play we will of course publish any explanation or alternative version of these events as soon as we receive it from Boels.

Pierre Boels, has told us that he is considering a response.