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January 5, 2021
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- CLECAT and ESC again complain that the practices
containerised shipping carriers compromise the
recovery of the EU economy
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- Letter to the European Commission
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 European associations representing shippers and
loaders, as they have repeatedly done during the
2020, have once again urged the European Commission to
investigate the operational and commercial practices of
containerised navigation, activities which, according to CLECAT
(European Association for Forwarding, Transport, Logistics and
Customs Services) and the European Shippers' Council (ESC) are
having an increasingly distorting effect on the supply chain and
negative impact on the European economy.-
- In a letter sent to the EU Commission, referring to the
operational and tariff practices of sea carriers, CLECAT and
the ESC have accused, among other things, shipping companies of
breach of existing contracts, to put in place conditions
unreasonable in accepting reservations and to fix
unilaterally noli whose value would be by far
than that agreed in the contracts.
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- In the letter, the two associations pointed out that these
practices have a particularly negative effect on small
european companies that often have limited reserves of
Financial. To support this thesis CLECAT and ESC have led
for example the case of a company French that produces bicycles
electricity companies, a company that risks closing because it does not
receives spare parts from Asia: the consequence of delays in
deliveries, the lack of space and the increase in the number of
explained the associations -- is that the company is not in
able to finish its products and is suffering losses that in the
in the near future may not be able to sustain. It is a question of
negative repercussions - clecat and esc specified - which
are also felt by much larger companies, including
those of large-scale distribution, fashion, the
automotive, cosmetics and information technology.
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- In the letter CLECAT and ESC they again recriminated that the
shipping companies operating operating on-line services reserve
the ability to make changes to the nuts whenever
consider it appropriate, beyond the level of tariffs and
of the charges agreed with customers. The two associations have
stressed that at the same time shippers and shippers must
in the face of rejected bookings and delays in loading their
goods on ships if sea carriers consider more
accept shipments at higher rates for
other goods. CLECAT and ESC also complained that the carriers
would require the acceptance of additional tariffs, up to
to refuse reservations by forcing customers with whom the
the value of the noles was agreed by contract to
having to resort to shipping with noli spots much more
Onerous.
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- CLECAT and ESC have also focused on the problem
of the current shortage of empty containers, a shortage - they explained -
that was caused by supply chain outages
caused by the unprecedented number of blank sailings programmed by the
maritime carriers, cancellations of departures up to 30% of the
total for certain traffic routes, and by the
lack of reliability of the schedules, since - they have
specified the two associations - only 50% of the starting dates
of the ships was found to correspond to those announced
by shipping companies. CLECAT and ESC noted that,
if, on the one hand, maritime carriers are trying to send back the
empty containers in China for both operational and commercial needs,
on the other hand this is producing a domino effect as it
there is a general shortage of containers available for
european exports and, consequently, freight forwarders must
even confronting nicknames such as those imposed by the
shipping companies and motivated by the need to cover the
costs for repositioning containers. According to CLECAT and ESC,
this motivation are it would make sense since maritime carriers
decide to send empty containers back to China essentially for
commercial reasons.
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- In the letter CLECAT and ESC also recalled that they had already
expressed their frustration at the decision of the
European Commission to extend once again the application of the
block exemption regulation in favour of companies
navigation services operating line services
(
of the 26th
March 2020). Decision - they noted - thanks to which the
sea carriers may continue to jointly establish the
programming of blank sailing, leading to a lack of
capacity that has allowed carriers to increase
significantly the noles, both those fixed through contracts and those
Spot.-
- CLECAT and ESC concluded by reiterating once again that these
practices of shipping companies represent a serious
risk to the resilience of the Union's economies
European.
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