News / FMC demands more info from Premier Alliance to assess its 'competitive impacts'

Photo: VesselFinder

The US Federal Maritime Commission (FMC) has issued a request for more information from ONE, HMM and Yang Ming on their proposed Premier Alliance.

The request has meant the first official date for the alliance – Thursday 12 December – has been delayed by a fortnight, because “more information is needed by the FMC to determine the potential competitive impacts of the arrangement”.

The FMC formally issued a Request for Additional Information (RFAI) on Friday, and a two-week public consultation launches today.

“The commission uses the RFAI process to obtain documents and verifiable information necessary to achieve clarity on matters that were not addressed by the filing parties, or where insufficient information was provided in the originally filed agreement.

“The commission has determined that the Premier Alliance agreement as submitted lacks sufficient detail to allow for a complete analysis of potential competitive impacts and whether the agreement fully complies with all statutory requirements,” the FMC said.

It added that it “has 45 days from when it determines responses to the RFAI are deemed complete to review the agreement for competitive and legal concerns before it becomes effective”.

The targeted operational start date of the Premier Alliance’s network services remains the beginning of February, and until then the carriers are still operating under THE Alliance vessel-sharing agreement.

However, according to analysts at the eeSea liner database, some ONE vessels deployed on THE Alliance services are already set to be phased into the new Premier Alliance network, those on THE Alliance’s FE4 Asia-North Europe service are beginning to appear on member carrier ONE’s Premier Alliance FE4 pro forma schedule.

The FE4 will be operated jointly by the Premier Alliance and MSC under a slot swap agreement. The FE4 corresponds to MSC’s Asia-North Europe Silk service.