A legal case in the UK provides useful insights into the relationship between small road hauliers and major customers, in this case Amazon. On 13 August 2026, David Mullan, Traffic Commissioner for the North West of England, revoked the operator’s licence of Greeth Ltd, a small St Helens-based company authorised to operate four heavy goods vehicles and working for Amazon. In the same decision, the Commissioner rejected its application to increase the fleet to six vehicles and six trailers. The revocation was due to take effect at 23.45 on 9 September, but has been suspended pending an appeal. The decision makes no allegations against Amazon, but concerns the way the licence holder managed its relationship with its customer. According to findings from the public inquiry, held on 9 and 24 June 2026, Greeth had left compliance functions that UK law places on the licence holder to Amazon’s systems, its drivers and its transport manager. In the decision, the Commissioner describes a recurring assumption that responsibility for compliance lay elsewhere: with Amazon, the drivers or the transport manager.
The way the work was organised emerges mainly from the inspection report by the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA), drawn up after a visit on 11 November 2025. It found that Amazon planned the journeys, while monitoring of drivers’ working hours was carried out through the customer’s systems. Reports of drivers’ hours infringements were generated by Tachomaster software, which also monitored deadlines for drivers’ professional qualifications. Much of the drivers’ training – including load-securing training – was delivered through Amazon platforms, and the haulier was unable to document its content or say who had completed it. The haulage company’s sole director, Konstantinos Theologidis, told the Commissioner that Amazon’s planning was designed to comply with drivers’ hours rules, adding that because Amazon loaded and sealed the trailers, Greeth had no remaining responsibility for load securing. The inspector concluded that the operator itself must manage, monitor and record its systems and procedures.
The most serious incident identified by the DVSA occurred on 18 February 2026, when the investigation was already under way. A driver had driven for five hours and 59 minutes without taking a valid break, compared with the four-and-a-half-hour limit under drivers’ hours rules, which also apply in the UK. The infringement report was drawn up on 24 March and the documented interview with the driver took place in May. The Commissioner accepted the DVSA’s assessment that the report had most likely been produced in response to the investigation or proceedings rather than as part of a genuine disciplinary process. The DVSA acknowledged improvements in checks on driving licences and driver qualifications, but remained dissatisfied with the handling of infringements, disciplinary procedures and checks on missing mileage.
The management of the licence also showed irregularities, most of them admitted by the company. One of the company’s lorries was stopped by the DVSA on 5 June while being operated without being specified on any licence, because all four vehicle slots on Greeth’s licence were already occupied. Automatic number plate recognition data also showed the repeated and simultaneous operation of five vehicles between 23 June and 2 July 2025. The Commissioner found that the authorised fleet limit had been exceeded between May and June 2025 and that this stopped only after the agency intervened. Up to 30 May 2026, he counted 26 cases in which vehicles had been operated for more than 28 days after coming into the company’s possession without being specified on the licence. From June 2025 to 9 June 2026, the vehicles were also kept at an unauthorised operating centre in Widnes, where six vehicles were based during that period.
Workforce management was another significant element in the case. Greeth employed two drivers directly and used three other drivers operating through their own limited companies. The Commissioner raised doubts about the legitimacy of this arrangement, which the company director said was intended to reduce labour costs. The decision nevertheless states that the main concerns did not arise from the use of drivers operating through companies as such, but from the absence of effective control over those drivers and over the transport operation as a whole.
The legal core of the decision is the principle that responsibility follows control of the operation, and the Commissioner noted that in Greeth’s case operational control appeared to be distributed between Amazon, the drivers, the transport managers and the director. As regards the European Union, the principle that a transport manager must effectively and continuously manage transport activities is also laid down in Regulation (EC) No 1071/2009, which establishes common rules on the conditions to be complied with to pursue the occupation of road transport operator.
The revocation of Greeth’s licence is based on five grounds under the Goods Vehicles (Licensing of Operators) Act 1995. They are the use of an unauthorised operating centre, breach of the four-vehicle limit, failure to keep vehicles at the declared operating centre, inadequate systems for drivers’ hours and tachograph compliance, and loss of good repute. Good repute was found to have been lost by both the company and its sole director. The Commissioner classified the case as "serious" and ruled out lighter measures such as suspension or a reduction in the authorised fleet. According to the decision, the time already elapsed gave no reason to expect substantial changes. However, pending the outcome of the appeal, the company’s operator’s licence remains valid.
Antonio Illariuzzi
