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The Federation of European Private Port Companies and Terminals (FEPORT) has claimed that a revised Consortia Block Exemption Regulation (CBER) adapt more to digital solutions. FEPORT has indicated the current CBER, which is being under discussion at the European Commission (EC)'s Department for Competition (DG Comp), does not care about digital solutions and as such, does create anti-competitive environments.
FEPORT issued a statement when convening a general meeting in late November, saying that in container shipping, which has been changing drastically in recent year, digital solutions are contained in slot-sharing agreements among carriers, which could produce anti-competitive environments. The federation pointed out that for this reason, the DG Comp should take such agreements into consideration when working on the CBER. It also emphasized that the impact of big data as well as business intelligence and analytics systems not be denied. Moreover, market definition methods that focus on static patterns of competition disregard the constraints of competition emanating from the dynamic and responsive forces and from the empirical realities at play in the digital economy, FEPORT continued. Therefore, these methods need to shift their focus away from static onto dynamic constraints of competition.
