NCBFAA: Eliminating tariff-publishing more beneficial to NVOs

NCBFAA: Eliminating tariff-publishing more beneficial to NVOs The National Customs Brokers and Forwarders Association of America said most non-vessel-operating common carriers’ businesses will benefit more from the elimination of tariff publication than from the ability to arrange confidential service contracts with shippers.
   “If service contract authority is granted, no one would do it,” said NCBFAA counsel Edward D. Greenberg, at the association’s annual Government Affairs Conference in Washington Monday.
   Last year, the NCBFAA filed a petition with the U.S. Federal Maritime Commission requesting the agency use its exemption authority under the 1998 Ocean Shipping Reform Act to eliminate the burdensome requirement for NVOs to publish tariffs.
   A few weeks prior to that petition, UPS filed its own petition to the FMC requesting the right to enter into confidential service contracts with its customers, a privilege reserved solely for vessel-operating common carriers under OSRA. Other NVOs, including BAX Global, BDP International, C.H. Robinson Worldwide, Danzas, FedEx Trade Networks Transport & Brokerage, and Ocean World Lines, filed related petitions to the agency.
   On Aug. 2, the National Industrial Transportation League, Transportation Intermediaries Association, and six NVOs, which included UPS, FedEx Trade Networks Transport & Brokerage, BAX Global, BDP International, C.H. Robinson Worldwide, filed a joint submission urging the FMC to implement the reforms without further deliberation. The NCBFAA believes the joint submission’s focus on service contracting for NVOs is shortsighted, although it did not oppose it.
   Greenberg pointed out that under the joint submission NVOs must still file certain service contract details with the FMC, similar to what’s required for VOCCs in OSRA. “It won’t change the way business is done and wouldn’t save money at the end of the day,” he said.
   In a reference to the NCBFAA’s consideration of the initial NVO service contract petitions to the FMC, and the recent joint submission, Greenberg said both large and small member firms of the group’s NVO and freight forwarding committees said they saw no immediate commercial value for service contracts with their customers.
   “We would definitely be opposed to it, because of the complete duplication of work,” said Pat Fosberry, an executive with forwarder/NVO John S. James. “Our pricing is constantly changing. It would be extremely difficult to manage.”
   Fosberry said that while John S. James has its own service contracts with VOCCs, the company negotiates “spot rates on a day-to-day basis” with its customers through those contracts.
   J. Micheal Cavanaugh, an attorney with law firm Holland+Knight, said his client UPS, while sympathetic to the NCBFAA’s goal to eliminate tariff publishing for NVOs, believes service contracting rights will help the logistics provider reach its goal of becoming a “one-stop shop” for shippers. “We think it’s a step in the right direction,” Cavanaugh said.
   The liner carriers were invited to participate in the NCBFAA’s panel discussion, “NVOCC Deregulation: Point/Counterpoint,” but failed to provide a representative.