Brussels, 16/02/2016 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 16 February, the European Commission announced that it wished to gather feedback on the commitments proposed by 15 container liner shipping companies in order to respond to concerns regarding possible concerted practices.
The Commission explained that it has concerns that the practice of these companies, which consists of publishing their future price increase intentions, on their website, in the press or through other channels, may harm competition and consumers by raising prices for their services to and from Europe.
General price increase announcements are generally made three to five weeks before the date on which the new prices are due to take effect and, during this period, some or all of the other carriers announce similar price increase intentions for the same route or similar route and on or near the same implementation date. General price increases have, in some cases, been postponed or changed by certain companies, possibly in order to bring them into line with increases announced by other carriers. These price increases are generally quite considerable (several hundred US dollars per unit of container transported).
The Commission fears that general price increase announcements do not provide customers with full information on the new prices, but instead simply allow other companies to examine each other's pricing intentions and to coordinate their behaviour.
The companies involved are China Shipping (China), CMA CGM (France), COSCO (China), Evergreen (Taiwan), Hamburg Süd (Germany), Hanjin (South Korea), Hapag Lloyd (Germany), HMM (South Korea), Maersk (Denmark), MOL (Japan), MSC (Switzerland), NYK (Japan), OOCL (Hong Kong), UASC (United Arab Emirates) and ZIM (Israel).
In order to mollify the Commission's concerns, these carriers have offered commitments consisting of: - ceasing publishing general price increase announcements, in other words price changes expressed solely in the form of an amount or percentage; - including the five main elements of the total price in price announcements (base rate, bunker charges, security charges, terminal handling charges and peak session charges if applicable); - any such future announcements will be binding on the carriers as maximum prices for the announced period of validity; - price announcements will not be made more 31 days before their entry into force. These commitments would not apply to communications with purchasers who on that date have an existing rate agreement in force on the route to which the communication refers or to communications during bilateral negotiations communications tailored to the needs of specific identified purchasers. The commitments will apply for three years. (Original version in French by Elodie Lamer)