Federal Maritime Commission Throws Another Hurdle At The Containership Ocean Alliance

By Mike Wacket (TheLoadstar) It might not be easy for one of the new mega east-west vessel-sharing alliances to appease the regulators.

The Ocean Alliance, comprising CMA CGM (including APL), Cosco, Evergreen and OOCL, needs regulatory approval from the Chinese, the EU and the US Federal Maritime Commission (FMC).

It is highly unlikely that Beijing will throw up any obstacles, since it has a vested interest in its newly merged container carriers, and EU approval is basically self-regulating.

However, the FMC in the past insisted on the 2M alliance changing “the language” of its proposal regarding negotiations with service providers, and it seems that the Ocean Alliance’s application is receiving the same treatment.

“I pay special attention to competition matters especially to small businesses, downstream participants and the upstream — supplier and vendor markets.” says FMC Commissioner Doyle.  “We’ve been down this road before with language proposed but not implemented by the P3 Alliance and the language in the existing 2M Alliance (Maersk and MSC). I’d like to see fair dealing and transparency in how the parties handle negotiations…”