Cooperation and competition in the cargo liner shipping industry

It is widespread international practice that cargo liners meet at regular conferences to fix prices and quotas for individual routes. Presently, however, the respective European regulation granting liners an exemption from competition laws is under review. Liners claim that conferences are a necessary pre-condition for the provision of reliable services. In contrast, we demonstrate that there is little evidence for a destabilizing effect of competition, while conferences can themselves give rise to instability. The liners association (ELAA) has, in response to the EU review process, proposed an information exchange system as an alternative. In our view this has some merits. Transfer of data might even be mandatory, information output should be aggregated and anonymized and made available to the general public. We are skeptical, however, about any 'discussions' between liners that go further than anonymized information exchange.