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Shipping Conferences Under EC Antitrust Law

Shipping Conferences Under EC Antitrust Law Criticism of a Legal Paradox

Author: Luis Ortiz Blanco
Publisher: Hart Publishing
ISBN: 9781841135274
Published In: June 2007
Format: Hardback , 696 pages
Jurisdiction: U.K. ? Disclaimer:
Countri(es) stated herein are used as reference only

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Liner conferences are among the oldest surviving cartels in the world. Created in the 1870's they have existed since on all the world's shipping routes. With the approval or tacit acquiescence of governments everywhere, they fix freight rates, control capacity and share markets. The United Nations Code of Conduct for Liner Conferences (1974) granted them global recognition and prompted the EC to recommend Member States to join the Convention on the Liner Code (1979) and to grant them the most generous and extraordinary block exemption from EC antitrust rules ever (1986).

The EC Commission's administration of the block exemption has clarified some of its aspects and, to a certain extent, limited its scope; but until very recently, it has not questionned the appropriateness of the exceptionally lenient treatment of liner shipping cartels in the EU. After a report by the OECD Secretariat (2002) recommending abolition of antitrust immunity for shipping cartels in member countries, the European Commission launched a review of the block exemption (2003) which has not yet finished, and suggested that the authorisation for liner conferences should either be repealed by severely limited.

This book studies first the origins, the early history and the regulation of liner conferences in the world and in the EC, focusing in particular on the regulation which granted a block exemption to liner conferences. Then, it examines one by one the four conditions for a block exemption to be granted under EC law, and concludes that none of them is fulfilled by shipping cartels. Finally, it recommends that the block exemption is repealed and proposes some alternative scenarios and solutions for the adequate enforcement of antitrust law in the maritime sector.

Luis Ortiz Blanco is a partner with Garrigues Abogados y Asesores Tributarios.

…the single best book on the application of competition law to shipping that has yet been written and achieves that status by some distance…An authoritative tome such as this will be difficult to ignore.
Stephen Tupper
European Competition Law Review
Vol 29, Issue 2, 2008

Cet ouvrage...constitue sans doute une des références les plus construites sur l'histoire juridique des conférences maritimes et les tenants et les aboutissants du règlement n° 4056/86
Revue Lamy de la Concurrence
No 13, Oct-Dec 07