By Xu Jianhua

Regulation of liner industry

By Xu Jianhua

On March 15, the US Department of Justice antitrust investigators suddenly came to the meeting place of the global container operator council in San Francisco and issued investigation summons to the chief executive officers or executives of the world's leading liner companies. The carriers who received the summons was told that relevant information should be submitted before the attorney hearings in Baltimore in the second half of April.

This incident has again brought the industry’s attention to the international liner supervision and antitrust investigation. The antitrust investigation started 30 years ago. Since the European Commission's investigation of the Far East Freight Association in the late 1980s, the container shipping industry has never been out of the eyesight of regulators. As a recent example in October 2008, the European Commission announced the abolition of the container shipping company's antitrust immunity. In May 2011, the EU antitrust commission carried out a sudden morning check of the 14 European headquarters of the top carriers, followed by an investigation of price collusion by the 14 industry giants. In 2013, the first summit of the global regulators, namely China-USEuropean International Shipping Regulatory Conference was held in Washington, D.C., USA. US Federal Maritime Commission (FMC), the Chinese Ministry of Transport and the European Commission's Board of Competition Directors attended the meeting and the theme of the meeting is on how to regulate new global alliances. In June 2014, because of China’s opposition, the permission P3 has got from the European Commission and FMC was nullified. In 2015, on the second China-US-European International Shipping Regulatory Conference held in Brussels, the representatives of the three sides discussed the antitrust and regulatory issues in the marine transport industry. In the same year, the US Department of Justice succeeded in punishing with fi nes the price collusion and monopoly of the four enterprises, namely Wallenius Lines, K-line , NYK line and CCNI, and put several executives into jail. In 2016, the new EU antitrust commissioner, Margrethe Vestager of Danish nationality closed the price collusion investigation of 14 industry giants companies which had lasted for five years. In March 2017, the US Department of Justice issued summons to the chairmen and chief executive off i cers of the world's top container companies at their San Francisco meeting place.

On 20 April, 2017, the 3rdChina-US-European International Shipping Regulatory Conference was held in Beijing and was attended again by the US Federal Maritime Commission (FMC), the Chinese Ministry of Transport and the European Commission’s assembly of competition directors. The meeting will play an important role in promoting the healthy and orderly development and the regulation of the international maritime market in the future.

The development of regulation of the international liner shows that though the container shipping companies have been investigated by many regulators, including regulators in South Africa and Russia, but the most strict regulation comes from China, the US and the European Union.