The European Commission (EC) has decided not to extend the Consortia Block Exemption Regulation (CBER) beyond April 2024. This EU law allows for the establishment of liner shipping consortia under certain conditions, exempting them from the EU general antitrust rules.
CBER had been extended in 2014 and 2020. This last extension´s justification was based on the absence of a deterioration in the parameters of competition in the sector, like freight rates, reliability or availability of services and on the assessment that CBER generates efficiency gains for the shipping sector that are transferred to consumers. Back then, ETA together with CLECAT, ESC and FEPORT rejected that decision and put into question the EC´s justifications to extend the validity of CBER.
The EC decision to not extend CBER follows a review process launched in August 2022, with which the Commission competition services aimed at gathering evidence on the functioning of Regulation since the last extension. ETA participated in this process and together with 9 European associations signed a joint letter calling for “a change of the legislative framework in which the container shipping lines are able to cooperate and therefore not for an (unaltered) extension of the de Consortia Block Exemption Regulation” as the benefits of the exemptions from general competition law enjoyed by the liners were not shared fairly with the rest of the logistics chain.
The evaluation process opened by the EC has collected evidence from the different stakeholders and its Staff Working Document indicates that the efficiency gains that justified CBER were quite low or limited throughout the 2020-2023 period, and thus, it no longer promotes competition in the shipping sector.
ETA is glad that the EC acknowledges the important developments the sector has been through during the last years. “The non-extension of CBER is a consequence of the big changes in the shipping market that have occurred since 2020 such as vertical integration or carrier´s consolidation, changes that have mainly benefitted shipping lines and which have unfairly strengthened their bargain power to the detriment of the other players in the maritime sector” says Anna Maria Darmanin, ETA Secretary General.
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