THE World Shipping Council has lambasted a report examining vessel sharing arrangements in Europe that was published by the OECD's International Transport Forum as ?riddled with fundamental flaws?and demands the report be discarded.
The report entitled: 'Container Shipping in Europe Data for the Evaluation of the EU Consortia Block Exemption' was issued as European regulators considered whether to renew the consortia block exemption regulation (BER) that authorises the continued of existence of vessel-sharing alliances.
Triggering the vitriol from the WSC, the report alleged that 'container shipping has become more concentrated and vertically integrated and has slipped on various performance indicators related to trade lanes to and from Europe'. EU regulators are considering whether to extend an antitrust protection called the block exemption regulation (BER ) for container shipping consortia past April 2020.
The WSC said space-sharing arrangements create many benefits for shippers: more frequent service, a wider range of service and the ability for carriers to operate larger, more efficient ships, which helps reduce costs.
He said the ITF report was 'the product of collaboration of ITF with the European Commission. It was in exchanges with the commission that data potentially relevant for the evaluation of the consortia BER by the commission was identified.'
The WSC Council criticised the ITF's use of statistics, saying it combined data from two different sources and it is not clear how they have been combined.
WORLD SHIPPING
The report entitled: 'Container Shipping in Europe Data for the Evaluation of the EU Consortia Block Exemption' was issued as European regulators considered whether to renew the consortia block exemption regulation (BER) that authorises the continued of existence of vessel-sharing alliances.
Triggering the vitriol from the WSC, the report alleged that 'container shipping has become more concentrated and vertically integrated and has slipped on various performance indicators related to trade lanes to and from Europe'. EU regulators are considering whether to extend an antitrust protection called the block exemption regulation (BER ) for container shipping consortia past April 2020.
The WSC said space-sharing arrangements create many benefits for shippers: more frequent service, a wider range of service and the ability for carriers to operate larger, more efficient ships, which helps reduce costs.
He said the ITF report was 'the product of collaboration of ITF with the European Commission. It was in exchanges with the commission that data potentially relevant for the evaluation of the consortia BER by the commission was identified.'
The WSC Council criticised the ITF's use of statistics, saying it combined data from two different sources and it is not clear how they have been combined.
WORLD SHIPPING