EMEA News
Europe Extends Antitrust Exemption for Carriers
The European Commission (EC) says it has extended an exemption from antitrust laws for liner shipping consortia.
The regulation, which the EC extended through April 2020, allows carriers with a combined market share of less than 30 percent to provide joint cargo services.
"After a public consultation, the Commission has concluded that the exemption has worked well, providing legal certainty to agreements which bring benefits to customers and do not unduly distort competition, and that current market circumstances warrant a prolongation," the EC said.
The regulators argued that, as long as competition on the market is sufficient and carriers do not use alliances to fix prices, consortia can improve productivity and service quality.
The exemption was first established in 1995 and has been extended several times since then.
European regulators had declined to challenge the proposed P3 shipping alliance, which would have allowed three container shipping lines controlling 47 percent of the market on some major trade routes, to share capacity, but Chinese authorities stopped the plan from progressing.
