Brussels chip ax the engagements on the hires introduced from 14 main companies of the containerized marine transport



The EU commission has received, as attended, the engagements of transparency of the hires offered from 14 primary companies of navigation of the field of the containerized marine transport adopting today a decision that returns such engagements legally binding, that they are faces to increase the transparency of the hires and to reduce the probability of a coordination of the rates and on which last February the Commission had invited the interested parts to introduce observations ( on 16 February 2016). Brussels, after a series of inspections to surprise near the offices of the navigation companies, in November 2013 had started an investigation in order to ascertain the eventual constitution of restrictive commercial practical trusts and in violation of the European norms on the competition ( on May 17, 2011 and 22 November 2013).

The engagements are introduced by the Danish Maersk Line, from the French CMA CGM, Chineses COSCO Container Lines (COSCON) and Orient Overseas Container Linens (OOCL), from the taiwanese Evergreen Line, the Germans Hamburg Süd and Hapag-Lloyd, from the South Koreans Hanjin Shipping and Hyundai Merchant Marine (HMM), from the Helvetian Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC), from the Japanese Mitsui O.S.K. Lines (MOL) and Nippon Yusen Kaisha (NYK), from the emiratina United Arab Shipping Company (UASC) and from Israeli ZIM. The investigation had involved also the Chinese carrier Lowers Shipping Container Lines (CSCL) that but, as a result of the fusion of the activities of the group leader Lowers Shipping with those of compatriot COSCO, it has changed own Core business from the transport of line to the chartering of the fleet of portacontainer, ships that now CSCL rents to consorella the COSCON.

The engagements assumed from the navigation companies, than as a result of the consultation with the operators of the market the Commission European considers answer to the worries for a possible distortion of the competition, preview the cessation of the publication and communication of the General Rate Increase (GRI), announcements with which are returned notice generalized tariff increases that they consist in the indication of the single amount of the tariff variation. Moreover the companies, in order to do so as that the future announcements on the rates are useful to the customers, have been engaged to communicate figures who include at least five main members of the rate total, that is installment of hire base, amount for the variation of the price of the fuel (Bunker Adjustment Factor - BAF), burdens for the safety controls (SEC/ISPS), costs for handling of the container in the harbour terminals (Terminal Handling Charges - THC) and soprannoli for the periods of peak season (Peak Season Surcharge - PSS). Such tariff communications will be binding for the navigation companies as the top prices for the period of announced validity (the companies will have however the possibility to practice inferior hires the maximal ones) and will have to be diffuse not more than 31 days before their effectiveness.

These engagements, than the EU commission it has assumed as legally binding for the companies of navigation for a period three-year-old beginning from on December 7, 2016, they will not be applied to the communications with customers who have already stipulated an agreement of relative convention to the hires for the route object of the communication and to the communications carried out in the course of bilateral negotiations or to specific communications for the requirements of specific customers.

"The containerized marine transport - Margrethe Vestager has commented, European commissioner to the Competition - is the modality by far more used for the transport by sea from and for Europe of goods not helter-skelter. Competitive services of transport are essential for the European companies and the European economy in its complex. With the engagements proposed from the 14 carriers, the rates of these services will be more transparent and the competition will increase".

While the association of European shipowners ECSA (European Community Shipownsers' Associations) has manifested hard worry for the increase of protectionism in the world-wide commerce, as confirmed - the association has remembered - from a recent study lead from the department of the commerce of the EU commission that supplies a panoramic one of the protezionistiche tendencies and the main trade barriers in some of main the partner economic of the EU. In particular - it has specified the association - the study evidences that 200 new protezionistiche measures are adopted in the 31 which monitored nations, while at the same time was not removed almost some protezionistica measure that hinders the commerce.

"Draft - it has evidenced the general secretary of the ECSA, Patrick Verhoeven - of a worrisome tendency for the shipping, that it is the carrier of international the commercial exchanges. Any obstacle to the international commerce has an impact negative directed on our field. We ask therefore the EU commission to develop a strong external marine agenda of the European Union in the within of the next package on the marine transport in 2017. Such program - Verhoeven has explained - would have to comprise as it converses marine structured and so bilateral agreements of free exchange with the main Third-country".

Moreover the European shipowners confide that the negotiations of free exchange in course and concluded, as CETA, TTIP, TiSA and the agreement of free EU-Japan exchange, will be accelerated and ratified as soon as possible. The ECSA has found that these agreements have demonstrated to their validity in creating a better and stabler atmosphere for the companies of navigation and the other partner economic, in when - has specified the association - they create put up opportunity in terms of commerce, of increase and of places of work it is for the EU that for the interested Third-country.