ESC fights consortia exemption. (European Shippers' Councils)(includes related article)

Says draft legislation gives carriers too much leeway.

How can members of a consortium market their services jointly without cooperating on pricing?

In a letter to the European Commission's competition directorate, the European Shippers' Councils posed that question, and others, hoping to prompt the EC to tighten its proposed block antitrust exemption for shipping consortia.

The final draft of the regulation specifies that consortia are not eligible for an automatic antitrust exemption if they engage in price fixing. However, consortia can engage in joint marketing and pool revenue and vessels and still qualify for automatic exemption.

To ESC, this doesn't make sense.

"It is ... a complete illusion to believe that any group of shipping lines that have agreed on such a comprehensive scope of cooperation as is made possible by Article 3.2 (a-e) will find it …