Global Shippers Forum
GSF
The Global Shippers’ Forum (GSF) is the organisation for businesses that are shippers (beneficial cargo owners) of goods in international trade.
ID: 056183221914-36
Lobbying Activity
Response to Evaluation of the Consortia Block Exemption Regulation
3 Oct 2022
GSF asks the Commission not to renew the Consortia Block Exemption Regulation after 2024, believing its benefits have not been fairly shared with users of liner shipping services in the time since it was last renewed in 2020.
GSF believes the CBER is an outdated legal instrument, which is difficult to enforce, open to unintended interpretations and whose legal effect can be achieved by more transparent, better targeted instruments, if indeed such exemptions remain justified.
Furthermore, GSF calls on the Commission to expand the scope of its evaluation beyond its customary criteria and assess different ways that necessary exemptions for shipping lines operating in consortia can be provided in the future, given the different market conditions and commercial structures that exist now, compared to when the CBER was adopted in 2009.
GSF believes the CBER is undermining users’ confidence in the integrity of the container shipping industry and in the ability of the Commission to monitor and protect users’ interests. This is detrimental to the long-term interests of international trade, and to the collective effort needed to address significant challenges and opportunities for the shipping sector, including decarbonisation and digitalisation.
The purpose of general competition law is to protect the interests of customers and consumers from the effects of dominant suppliers and the establishment of cartelised operations. The experiences, frustrations, and dissatisfaction of large swathes of European and global business with the recent behaviour of global shipping markets justifies a change in the legislative approach, as a means of restoring trust and confidence in the container shipping industry, an industry which is vital to the economies of trading nations and meeting the needs of citizens and businesses worldwide.
Read full responseResponse to Prolongation of the Consortia Block Exemption Regulation
3 Jan 2020
GSF disagrees with the Commission’s proposal to simply prolong the CBER. The terms of the Review seem to have limited discussion to either renewal or non-renewal of the current legal instrument. This has precluded the possibility of a wider discussion of the role of competition policy in optimising the benefits of Consortia to shippers and other consumers of their services. The terms of the Review also regrettably precluded any assessment of alternatives to the CBER.
The Review revealed no convincing reason why the container shipping industry alone should be granted the quite exceptional benefits of the CBER. Relief from the costs and time needed to comply with the rightly demanding requirements of Article 101 TFEU is simply not a credible or sustainable justification for exemptions from normal EU Competition policy.
GSF also contests many of the findings of the Staff Working Document and believes they overlook legitimate and significant issues raised by shippers in the course of the Review.
GSF urges the Commission to revisit its decision and recognise that in proposing a simple prolongation of the existing CBER it has missed an important opportunity for help the container shipping industry become more responsive in its role of serving European exporters and importers trading in the global market place.
The attached document sets out GSF views and arguments in greater details.
Read full response