Brussels, 07/07/2016 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 7 July, the European Commission announced its decision to make the commitments offered by 14 container liner shipping companies in order to respond to concerns regarding potential concerted practices legally binding (see EUROPE 11491).
The same day, Commission spokesperson Ricardo Cardoso explained that China Shipping had been restructured and had left the container liner shipping services sector and that commitment on its part were therefore no longer necessary. The transporters still in the picture are 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).
The Commission had concerns that the practice of these companies, which consist of publishing on their websites, in the press or through other channels, their intentions regarding future price increases, could harm competition and consumers by pushing these companies to increase the prices for their services to and from Europe. In order to appease the Commission's concerns, these transporters proposed commitments consisting of: - ceasing to publish announcements of general price increases, in other words price modifications expressed solely in the form of an amount or percentage change; - including the five principal elements of the total price in the announcements (basic rate, fuel duty, safety duty, terminal handling charges and high season costs, if applicable); - making all announcements of this type binding as a maximum price for the period of validity announced; - not making price announcements more than 31 days before their entry into force. These commitments would not apply to communications with purchasers which have concluded an agreement on prices for the route referred to in the communication, as long as this agreement is in force on the date in question, or to communications in the course of bilateral negotiations or quoted on the basis of the needs of specific, identified purchasers. These commitments would be applicable for three years with effect from 7 December 2016. (Original version in French by Élodie Lamer)