Comment / On the wires: Liner shipping's (head on the) block exemption

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“We need the commission to think ‘out of the box’,” Global Shippers’ Forum director James Hookham told The Loadstar yesterday, as the deadline passed for submissions to the EC’s competition directorate on the renewal of the Consortia Block Exemption Regulation (CBER) – the European legislation that allows container shipping lines to operate in alliances, and which is set to expire on 25 April 2024.

The legislation was first introduced in 2009 to replace the liner conference system that allowed shipping lines ...