Speaking on a panel at the 2017 TPM Conference in Long Beach, California, Mr Doyle was cited as saying in a report by the American Journal of Transportation: "Shippers and carriers need to work in the direction of providing safeguards. It is so important that this does not happen again. Companies may fail, but the responsibility lies with everyone, at least to the extent that we do not have the damage that occurred post-Hanjin."
He noted: "Things could have been done differently. Yes, the warning signs were there that a potential collapse of Hanjin Line could occur. However, nobody really thought that South Korea would allow the world's seventh largest carrier to go bust.
"My concern is that government-supported entities such as Hanjin leave much to be concerned about. Indeed, it was the Korean Development Bank that backed away from financially supporting the liner company, and once that happened, it was over.
"We are seeing once again government financed entities stepping in to prop-up liner companies. These include the South Korean-supported Korea Shipping Company, Korea Development Bank, Export-Import Bank of Korea, and the Korea Asset Management Corporation. We are also reading about the National Development Bank of the Taiwan Government and Taiwan's Ministry of Transport and Communication.
"My concern is what is the breaking point for a government to back-out and leave a liner company broke. We've seen this before.
"Things need to be done differently moving forward. We need safeguards. Upcoming new alliances should be jointly responsible for their partner lines. You get limited antitrust immunity to form alliances and you need to make sure the shipping public is treated fairly.
"I firmly believe that if you are going to join an alliance it is the responsibility of the alliance members to ensure the cargo gets where it needs to go. If a carrier company fails and that carrier is party to an alliance, the cargo carried on the failed company's ships may only equate to one-third of the container volume carried. The other two-thirds of containers may belong to the other carriers in the alliance. So, it is essential that you all take responsibility.
"The responsibility is to get the ship into port and get it unloaded, get the empties on board and get the ship back out to sea. The industry needs to investigate options such as insurance contracts or pooled funds to protect shippers from the fallout of a carrier collapse.
"There may be a problem with funding mechanisms associated with catastrophic failure as funds could be subject to creditors' rights in a bankruptcy. That needs to be worked out worldwide however, and by you the private sector. You don't want governments coming in and dictating this fail safe through regulatory means," Mr Doyle said.
"In the end, it was the Korean government that had to pay anyway. At the direction of South Korea and the Korean Development Bank or other directed entities would deposit millions of dollars in banks around the US to be used as funds to unload vessels. This was done piecemeal--a few million here, $10 million there and the days turned into weeks and then months in between for the funds to be cleared."
He noted: "Things could have been done differently. Yes, the warning signs were there that a potential collapse of Hanjin Line could occur. However, nobody really thought that South Korea would allow the world's seventh largest carrier to go bust.
"My concern is that government-supported entities such as Hanjin leave much to be concerned about. Indeed, it was the Korean Development Bank that backed away from financially supporting the liner company, and once that happened, it was over.
"We are seeing once again government financed entities stepping in to prop-up liner companies. These include the South Korean-supported Korea Shipping Company, Korea Development Bank, Export-Import Bank of Korea, and the Korea Asset Management Corporation. We are also reading about the National Development Bank of the Taiwan Government and Taiwan's Ministry of Transport and Communication.
"My concern is what is the breaking point for a government to back-out and leave a liner company broke. We've seen this before.
"Things need to be done differently moving forward. We need safeguards. Upcoming new alliances should be jointly responsible for their partner lines. You get limited antitrust immunity to form alliances and you need to make sure the shipping public is treated fairly.
"I firmly believe that if you are going to join an alliance it is the responsibility of the alliance members to ensure the cargo gets where it needs to go. If a carrier company fails and that carrier is party to an alliance, the cargo carried on the failed company's ships may only equate to one-third of the container volume carried. The other two-thirds of containers may belong to the other carriers in the alliance. So, it is essential that you all take responsibility.
"The responsibility is to get the ship into port and get it unloaded, get the empties on board and get the ship back out to sea. The industry needs to investigate options such as insurance contracts or pooled funds to protect shippers from the fallout of a carrier collapse.
"There may be a problem with funding mechanisms associated with catastrophic failure as funds could be subject to creditors' rights in a bankruptcy. That needs to be worked out worldwide however, and by you the private sector. You don't want governments coming in and dictating this fail safe through regulatory means," Mr Doyle said.
"In the end, it was the Korean government that had to pay anyway. At the direction of South Korea and the Korean Development Bank or other directed entities would deposit millions of dollars in banks around the US to be used as funds to unload vessels. This was done piecemeal--a few million here, $10 million there and the days turned into weeks and then months in between for the funds to be cleared."