LACK OF AN ALTERNATIVE

摘要

The European Union's decision to close down conferences to and from Europe in 2008 was done under understandable pressure from the shippers: why should they be subject to severe scrutiny with respect to anti-competitive behaviour when their suppliers, the lines, were able to collaborate? However, to close down one system - without identifying an alternative for the shipping industry to adhere to -was to ignore one of shipping's unique features: the enormous economies of scale available. Perhaps those organisations that campaigned against the conference system might also have taken this into account.