European Commission Evaluation of the Consortia Block Exemption Regulation

The European Commission is currently evaluating the EU Consortia Block Exemption Regulation (CBER) which provides vital legal certainty for the vessel sharing arrangements entered into by shipping lines to the benefit of their customers, trade and the environment.

The World Shipping Council (WSC) has made two submissions to the Commission’s evaluation, calling for a renewal of the CBER under its current terms and highlighting the cost, operational and climate efficiencies generated by consortia.

In this paper, we highlight recent market data that clearly demonstrate that increased freight rates and reduced reliability during the pandemic were the product of market forces and not attributable to carriers or consortia. Rather, it was the result of surge in goods transport demand particularly from the US, labour shortages and port and hinterland congestion which removed effective capacity from the market.

We also demonstrate how attempting to replace the CBER with other forms of guidance (the SBER, the Horizontal Guidelines, or the Article 101(3) Guidelines) will create legal uncertainty that is detrimental to the EU competition law compliance landscape.

Download a pdf version here.