24 September 2021

CLECAT SPEAKS AT PORTO MARITIME WEEK

CLECAT’s Director General Nicolette van der Jagt spoke earlier this week at the Porto Maritime Week in a panel with ECSA, FEPORT, ESC and ECASBA on the disruptions in the maritime supply chain. Noting that the overall image of container maritime supply chain is at its lowest level ever, with soaring freight rates, ongoing congestion and a huge disparity between services received and prices paid, it is in the interest of all stakeholders to ensure that the maritime supply chain becomes once again more attractive by assuring more reliable, predictable and faster services.  

Ms van der Jagt however urged for the need for an urgent review of the EU competition rules which are no longer fit for purpose. Whereas the FMC chair has noted that the competition authorities have found no evidence of horizon price collusion, the reality remains that carriers abuse their dominant position to obtain commercially sensitive data and invest the phenomenal profits they make today, on the back of many companies who are seeking to survive, to become global integrators through vertical integration. Ms van der Jagt underlined that smaller and medium-sized freight forwarders and shippers were particularly vulnerable to the carrier pressure to reveal sensitive information, as carriers withhold freight offers until this information is provided. Therefore, governments need to look closer and harder at a shipping market that is out of control.

The session concluded that it remains important to collaborate amongst stakeholders and to draw lessons from the current crisis. Meanwhile, the European Commission is urged to start with a fact- finding exercise on what really happened over 2020 and to share the data they use with the parties asking for this exercise.