Dark of the Antitrust on Assagenti, Spediporto and 15 marine agencies



If someone not particularly well-versed in the events of the genoese marine community has wondered because at the end last year Maersk Italy Spa, society with center to Genoa that represents the companies of navigation Maersk Italy and Safmarine of shipowning group Danish A.P. Møller-Mærsk, world leader of the containerized marine transport, has exited from the association of the genoese shipping agents Assagenti, today has an answer ( on 17 November 2011).

It is an answer that does not explain all, but that certainly it reveals partially because the friction between the Maersk group and other associate head physicians of Assagenti has been made gradually alive. It has supplied today the Guarantor Authority of the Competition and Market (AGCM) that it has comminato endorsements for beyond four million euro to Assagenti, the association of the genoese shippers Spediporto and to 15 marine agencies. The Authority Antitrust has fined two trade associations and the companies in order to have "place in being a restrictive understanding of the competition according to article 101 of the Treaty on the Operation of the European Union having for object the concerted increment of the fees of the agenziali services", a secret trust - it has found the AGCM - which lasted beyond five years.

The start of the preliminary investigation of the AGCM goes back to half 2010 ( on 14 June 2010). Object of inquiry, in order to assess if it were in existence a lesiva understanding of the competition, has been the two marine associations Assagenti and Spediporto and 15 agencies, between which the same Maersk Italy Spa that had started up the investigation having introduced on December 9, 2009 a question of treatment favorable in relation to the existence of activity of concertazione between the main active shipping agents on the Italian territory. The Antitrust has announced that, united to the question of forgiveness, "Maersk and its controlled Safmarine they have introduced documentary evidences, from which has been able to deduce the number of the participants to the concertazione, the modalities of realization of the understanding in associative within, the topics dealt from the parts in the course of the reunions indette within the Harbour Commission, let alone the duration of the concertazione".

Analogous question of forgiveness is introduced on July 30, 2010 by marine agency Hapag Lloyd Italy Srl, that it represents the shipowning society German Hapag-Lloyd, having enclosed - it has specified the AGCM - "some documents to new evidence of the denounced conducts". In March the 2011 preliminary investigation is extended to ulterior three marine agencies.

To conclusion of the investigative procedure, today the Guarantor Authority of the Competition and the Market has explained that the understanding, that "has lasted at least from February 2004 until all December 2009, has regarded the fixation of the fees of the agenziali services (document predisposition and emission which, for example, the bills of lading for the goods in export and the bonds of delivery for the goods in import), the "fixed rights", in violation of article 101 of the Treaty on the Operation of the European Union".

"In particular - it has specified the Antitrust - an only and complex understanding is put into effect: on one side, in the course of a series reunions in the within of the Harbour Commission the involved enterprises have been coordinated in order to fix the fees for fixed rights and, from 2008, the connected reduction in price of loyalization to apply to the shippers (horizontal profile of the understanding); from the other, Assagenti and Spediporto have been made loaded with trasfondere in the agreements of 2004 and the 2007 understanding established between the societies, "recommending" with a series of circulars, the respect of the same agreements (vertical profile of the understanding)".

Amount total of endorsements, that they will have to be pay within 90 days and whose determination - it has explained the Antitrust - is completed taking into consideration the various behaviors held from the single enterprises in the course of the understanding and their degree of collaboration in the course of the preliminary investigation, so is subdivided: Association Mediating Raccomandatari Agents Marine Agents Airplane - Genoa (Assagenti) 81,958 euros, Association Shippers Couriers and Conveyors of Genoa (Spediporto) 81,657 euros, Marine Agency the Ships 322,753 euros, Marine Agency Prosper 43,397 euros, APL Italy Agencies 115,146 euros, Lowers Shipping Italy Agency Co. 152,888 euros, CMA CGM Italy 895,789 euros, Coscon Italy 731,478 euros, CSA 107,879 euros, Gastaldi & C. 25,232 euros, Hapag Lloyd Italy 243,678, K-Linen Italy 435,247 euros, Medmar 98,386 euros, Paolo Scerni 3,456 euros, Thoss Car & Are 4,089 euros, Yang Ming Italy 477,188 euros and ZIM Italia 287,516 euros.

Maersk Italy, thanks to the collaboration with the Authority Antitrust, exits undamaged from the investigation, while Hapag Lloyd Italia sees reduced the endorsement of the half.

The AGCM has evidenced moreover as "the endorsed trust has had a relief impact on the market of the marine transport: although to the reunions active operators generally in the port of Genoa have participated - he has specified the Antitrust - numerous acquired documents in the course of the preliminary investigation demonstrate the valence of value "of reference" of the prices agreed in the transactions in other ports of the Mediterranean, which Gioia Tauro and La Spezia and generally in the Italian harbour system. The trust has moreover allowed the definition of prices of the fixed rights more elevated than those which could have gushed from a really competitive context, procuring obvious advantages it is to the category of the agents who to that of the shippers, that "they have confiscated" the loyalization reduction in price without to pour it to the final customers, to which also "have turned" the increments of the rates".