Copenhagen Municipality is ending its letter-delivery agreement with the private distributor Dao from the end of August 2026, saying the company does not fully meet the city’s requirements on pay and working conditions. Dao rejects the criticism.
Denmark’s largest municipality will no longer use Dao to deliver its letters to residents’ mailboxes, DR reports. Lord Mayor Sisse Marie Welling of SF says the decision rests on the assessment that Dao cannot fully live up to the city’s demands on wage and working conditions.
Dao took over letter distribution in Denmark from 2026, and Copenhagen signed an agreement with the private distributor, which has held the contract until now. It is not yet known who will handle the municipality’s letter delivery from September.
In a letter to Transport Minister Signe Munk, also of SF, the municipality writes that it is dropping the cooperation because Dao cannot fully comply with the city’s labor clause and its ESG annex. Those documents set requirements for suppliers’ social responsibility.
According to the letter, Dao’s inability to meet the clauses in full could create challenges in securing proper pay and working conditions throughout the supplier chain. The municipality also states that it does not have the ability to carry out sufficient control or to sanction possible breaches under current rules.
Dao rejects the criticism
Dao chief executive Hans Peter Nissen disputes that the conflict is about missing oversight or social dumping. Per DR, he says the company has changed its agreements with subcontractors over recent months, so the entire supplier chain is now covered by the requirements.
Nissen says Dao had a well-functioning arrangement with Copenhagen Municipality throughout the spring of 2026 and believed a deal was in place. He adds that the matter was then moved up to the political level, where it was rejected.
In his account, the two parties actually agree on the requirements for pay and working conditions. The real dispute, he says, concerns who should be able to sanction possible violations. BT also reports the termination and cites Dao’s director on the same point about who may complain about and sanction breaches.
Nissen says the case started in February 2026, and that Dao has since changed and corrected the many points raised by the municipality. Asked whether he can guarantee control over all subcontractors, he says he can guarantee that everything is in order.
He adds that this does not rule out a dispute over, for example, whether a distributor received the correct mileage or waiting-time payment. According to Nissen, Dao has no current cases and has had none for the past year. He describes the disagreement as more theoretical than practical.
The municipality’s decision follows its own assessment of the labor clause and ESG requirements, and its stated inability to enforce them adequately. Dao remains the country’s letter distributor outside the terminated municipal agreement.
