Brussels, 27/02/2014 (Agence Europe) - From 27 February to 31 March 2014, the European Commission is holding a consultation of third parties on its plan to prolong an exemption of liner shipping consortia from the application of EU antitrust rules that prohibit certain agreements between companies. The maritime consortia block exemption regulation allows shipping lines to enter into cooperation for the purpose of providing a joint service (known as “consortia”) to provide joint maritime cargo transport services. Such agreements usually allow liner shipping carriers to rationalise their activities and achieve economies of scale. If consortia are faced with sufficient competition and are not used to fix prices or share the market, the users of the services provided by consortia usually benefit from improvements in productivity and service quality. The regulation currently in force allows consortia so long as the market share of any consortium does not exceed 30%. The Commission plans to extend the current scheme until April 2020 with the same thresholds but will assess comments made in the consultation and introduce a new regulation before the current scheme expires in April 2015. (FG)