EU to probe container shipping lines
Brussels (AFP) - The European Commission launched an anti-trust probe into several unnamed container shipping companies to see if they have acted in concert to rig the market, it said on Friday.
The probe will focus on companies shipping containers on specific scheduled services, the Commission said, giving examples such as Rotterdam-Hamburg-Southampton and Shanghai-HongKong-Singapore.
The Commission, the European Union's executive arm, gave neither the names nor the exact number of the firms involved.
A Commission spokesman also declined to give details but said the probe concerned "not a small number of companies," reflecting the size of the industry in a major trading power.
The Commission said that since 2009, the companies have regularly announced plans to raise prices via their websites and in the specialised trade press.
The announcements were made several times a year and "contain the amount of increase and the date of implementation, which is generally similar for all announcing companies," it said in a statement.
The announcements were also usually made successively only a few weeks before implementation and this practice raised concerns the companies were signalling their pricing plans to each other, the Commission said.
If that is the case, it could "harm competition and customers by raising prices on the market for container liner shipping transport services on routes to and from Europe," it said.
The probe will examine that possibility, the Commission said, adding that opening an investigation does not prejudge the outcome.
Asked how the Commission could take such a position on information which the companies made public, the spokesman conceded that it was a first.
"Of course, companies can collude by secret agreements but they can also collude publicly," he added.
The EU is a huge trading power and in Rotterdam it is home to one of the world's biggest container ports, with shipping lines serving all corners of the globe.
