Lines favor Singapore antitrust extension

Lines favor Singapore antitrust extension    The Singapore Shipping Association on Thursday came out in favor of a proposal to extend liner carrier antitrust immunity in the country through 2015.
   The Competition Commission of Singapore (CCS) has recommended extending the antitrust block exemption, due to expire at the end of 2010, for another five years, primarily on the basis that removing antitrust immunity could impel ocean carriers to abandon Singapore as a shipping hub. Singapore's Minister of Trade and Industry is to decide on the matter, known as a block exemption order.
   Unsurprisingly, the Singapore Shipping Association is backing the competition commission's recommendation. Association members include a host of Asia's largest container lines, as well as the A.P. Moller – Maersk Group.
   'We are very appreciative of the CCS proposal which has taken into consideration Singapore's substantial shipping and port interests into its final evaluation,' said S.S. Teo, president of the association and managing director of Singapore-based liner carrier Pacific International Lines. 'The extension signals that there is no change in Singapore's pro-business environment. Extension of the (block exemption order) will allow Singapore to continue to provide a stable regulatory environment for shipping lines to call and operate out from Singapore.'
   Teo added the association does not have control or oversight of its members' commercial activities, but stressed in the past five years (when the previous antitrust waiver was in force), SSA member line companies 'complied strictly with CCS's requirements.'
   Just as unsurprisingly, shippers groups in Singapore and Asia have decried the antitrust exemption extension being proposed, saying the lack of true competition adversely impacts shippers.
   Teo, however, said that price-fixing and the losses experienced by the carrier industry in 2009 didn't add up.
   'If shipping lines were indeed operating as price-fixing cartels, they would not have suffered cumulative losses of around $20 billion during the 2009 economic crisis,' he said.
   The shipping association added, 'The days of shipping cartels' price-fixing are long past. Today's liner shipping agreements are non-binding. Member lines in these cooperative agreements have the full freedom to determine individual freight rates and charges for the carriage of goods in international shipping.
   'Furthermore, as the SSA has previously noted, there are no barriers to entry, and individual lines are free to withdraw their membership from any given liner shipping agreement.' ' Eric Johnson