By Foo Yun Chee BRUSSELS, March 24 (Reuters)– Cargo delivery business will certainly be excluded from antitrust regulations versus anti-competitive contracts for an additional 4 years till 2024 due to the fact that this causes reduce rates as well as far better customer solutions, EU antitrust regulatory authorities stated on Tuesday.

First taken on in 2009 as well as prolonged for 5 years in 2014, the consortia block exception law will certainly be extended for 4 even more years to April 2024, the European Commission stated in a declaration.

It enables lining delivery drivers with a consolidated market share listed below 30% to comply to give joint lining delivery solutions, called consortia, however does not enable price-fixing or market-sharing, both of which are characteristics of cartels.

Following an assessment introduced in 2014, the EU competitors guard dog stated responses revealed the law still supplies advantages to the lining delivery market.

“The consortia block exemption regulation results in efficiencies for carriers that can better use vessels’ capacity and offer more connections,” the EU competitors enforcer stated.

The International Chamber of Shipping (ICS), which stands for over 80% of the globe seller fleet, invited the information.

“The decision is very important because it will also influence the position taken by other competition authorities around the world,” ICS Deputy Secretary General Simon Bennett stated in a declaration.

“While the Commission arrived at its important decision before COVID-19 took hold, the knowledge that co-operative vessel sharing arrangements can continue with legal certainty will assist the recovery of global maritime trade once the current crisis is over,” he stated.

The profession body the Global Shippers’ Forum (GSF) had actually formerly criticised the exception, claiming it was not the remedy to the market’s problems.

“In our view the Commission has missed the opportunity to ask the bigger questions about how the shipping sector got into its current situation of historically low shipping rates and over-capacity on many routes,” GSF secretary-general James Hookham stated in a declaration in November in 2014. (Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; editing and enhancing by Barbara Lewis)

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