FMC revives joint NSA proposal

    The Federal Maritime Commission is reviving a long dormant proposal that unaffiliated NVOCCs be able to jointly offer NVO Service Arrangements (NSAs) to shippers.
    Currently NSAs allow cargo to be moved under contracts between one or more shippers and one NVOCC or a group of affiliated NVOCCs.
    In 2005, the FMC began a docket to look at allowing unaffiliated NVOCCs to also jointly offer NSAs, and some comments were filed, but the proposal has languished for many years.
    At an FMC meeting on Thursday, Chairman Richard A. Lidinsky, Jr., asked staff to prepare an update on the issue.
    In 2005, a coalition of companies and trade associations that included the National Industrial Transportation League, Agriculture Ocean Transportation Coalition, Transportation Intermediaries Association, UPS and FedEx said “generally beneficial cargo owners would benefit from joint NSAs because they would have more service options.”
    They also said “given the growing trend of VOCC consolidations, permitting, NVOCCs to join in NSAs to offer expanded service to shippers could provide a competitive and potentially more cost-effective alternative to the services offered by VOCCs, particularly for small and medium sized shippers who rely more heavily on NVOCC services.”
    The World Shipping Council, the principal trade association for the liner industry, said the FMC would have to resolve the legal issue of whether joint NVOCC action would be immune from the antitrust laws under the Shipping Act and argued that the agreements and activities for which the Shipping Act provides antitrust immunity are those undertaken by vessel operating common carriers–VOCCs, not NVOCCs.