The fifth biennial meeting of the Global Regulatory Summit consisted of representatives from Federal Maritime Commission (FMC), the European Union and the Republic of China, has been held virtually on 7 September, with the regulators discussing the competition issues related to the shipping industry.
During the meeting hosted by the European Commission, three broad agenda items were discussed. The first one was the sectoral developments since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, including an analysis of supply and demand, and identification of bottlenecks in the ocean-linked supply chain and the causes of service disruptions.
The other two topics were related to the actions undertaken so far by relevant jurisdictions and authorities in response and their results, as well as the way forward and, particularly, possible actions to increase resilience and smooth operations in the shipping sector.
The European Delegation was led by Henrik Mørch, the Director for Transport, Post, and Other Services, Directorate General for Competition. The Chinese delegation was led by Li Tianbi, Director General of the Water Transport Bureau, Ministry of Transportation, People’s Republic of China. Commissioners Rebecca F. Dye, Michael A. Khouri, and Carl W. Bentzel also attended the Summit on behalf of the FMC.
“The performance of ocean carriers in meeting historic demand for their services and the unusually high costs to move ocean containers are of interest and concern to regulators, legislators, and the public globally,” said Chairman of FMC, Daniel B. Maffei.
“Today’s session of the Global Regulatory Summit provided key competition authorities responsible for the oversight of the container shipping industry the opportunity to share information about what their respective monitoring and enforcement regimes are observing in the marketplace and compare conclusions about carrier behaviour,” he added.
The first Global Regulatory Summit was held in December 2013 and hosted by the Federal Maritime Commission. Subsequent meetings were held in Belgium in 2015, China in 2017, and the United States in 2019, while the next one agreed to be held in Beijing, in 2023.
