Shipping Conferences Under EC Antitrust Law: Criticism of a Legal Paradox
Author: Luis Ortiz Blanco
Pub Date: 2007
Publisher: Hart Publishing
ISBN / ISSN: 9781841135274/1841135275
Binding: Hard cover
Price: £135.00
Liner conferences are among the oldest surviving cartels in the world. Created in the 1870′s they have existed since on all the world’s shipping routes. With the approval or tacit acquiescence of governments everywhere, they fix freight rates, control capacity and share markets. The United Nations Code of Conduct for Liner Conferences (1974) granted them global recognition and prompted the EC to recommend Member States to join the Convention on the Liner Code (1979) and to grant them the most generous and extraordinary block exemption from EC antitrust rules ever (1986).
The EC Commission’s administration of the block exemption has clarified some of its aspects and, to a certain extent, limited its scope; but until very recently, it has not questionned the appropriateness of the exceptionally lenient treatment of liner shipping cartels in the EU. After a report by the OECD Secretariat (2002) recommending abolition of antitrust immunity for shipping cartels in member countries, the European Commission launched a review of the block exemption (2003) which has not yet finished, and suggested that the authorisation for liner conferences should either be repealed by severely limited.
