NEW US DRAFT BILL TO CONTROL AGREEMENTS BETWEEN OCEAN CARRIERS
Early this week, US representative John Garamendi (Democrat, California) introduced the “Ocean Shipping Competition Enforcement Act” in Congress, aimed at blocking anticompetitive alliances between ocean carriers.
This bill would allow the Federal Maritime Commission (FMC) to block any agreements among ocean carriers and marine terminal operators determined to be unreasonably anticompetitive without having to first obtain a federal court order. The press release notes that no other independent federal regulatory agency is required to obtain court orders to enforce similar antitrust regulations. In December 2022, Federal Maritime Commissioners Max Vekich and Carl W. Bentzel requested that the U.S. House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, on which Representative Garamendi serves, make this critical change in federal law.
This new bill builds upon the work of Rep Garamendi and Rep. Dusty Johnson (Republican, South-Dakota) over the last two years to reform the US laws regulating the ocean shipping industry, including the adoption of the Ocean Shipping Reform Act (OSRA) in June 2022 and the reintroduction of the Ocean Shipping Antitrust Enforcement Act in March 2023.
Source: Rep. Garamendi’s website