Brussels, 19/02/2013 (Agence Europe) - On 19 February, the European Commission decided not to extend or renew its anti-trust and abuse of dominant position guidelines for maritime transport services beyond the 26 September 2013 expiry date, in line with its general policy of gradually scrapping industry-specific competition rules, replacing them with a general system applying across the board.
In July 2008, the Commission introduced the special guidelines vis-à-vis price-fixing for shipping to be applicable until September 2013. The aim was to facilitate the transition from a sector-specific to a broad system of competition rules after the cancellation in 2006 of the exemption from price-fixing rules for maritime conferences (agreements between shipping companies on price and other transport conditions). Since then, a public consultation exercise was held in May 2012 confirmed that the special shipping rules were no longer needed and the aim of a smooth transition had been achieved. Moreover, the guidelines now duplicate the more general guidelines like the guidelines on “horizontal” agreements (see EUROPE 10279). (FG/transl.fl)