Commissioner William P. Doyle’s statement on OCEAN Alliance vote

Commissioner William P. Doyle of the U.S. Federal Maritime Commission issued the following statement today on the Commission’s approval of the Ocean Alliance (statement to be followed-up with more detail in coming days). The Ocean Alliance members consist of CMA CGM (APL), COSCO Shipping, Evergreen Line and Orient Overseas Container Lines:

“Today I voted to allow the Ocean Alliance to become effective. The alliance agreement has significantly changed since its initial filing. The parties are limited in their ability to use their collective market power to jointly negotiate contracts with marine terminal operators. Importantly, the Ocean Alliance partners must negotiate independently with and enter into separate individual contracts with stevedores, tugs, barges, chassis providers and other third party service providers. This is the same type of language that exists in the 2M Alliance Agreement.

“I want to thank Lars Kastrup, President of APL USA/CMA CGM, for meeting with me this week and also discussing some of the proposed terms in the alliance agreement. I wish Mr. Kastrup well in his new role as President of APL. I also appreciate Chairman Zhang Guofa of COSCO Shipping and his executive team for meeting with me Wednesday in Washington, DC to discuss their recent merger between COSCO and CSCL we well as the joint negotiation and procurement language for the Ocean Alliance agreement.”

According to the Ocean Alliance parties, the Ocean Alliance is expected to become operational in or around April 2017.

Commissioner William P. Doyle and Chairman Zhang Guofa of COSCO Shipping North America met October 19, 2016 to discuss the completion of the recent COSCO-CSCL merger and the terms and conditions of the proposed Ocean Alliance agreement and the term. Pictured from left to right: Jacky Wang, Nancy Lu, Feng Bo, Commissioner William P. Doyle, Chairman Zhang Guofa, Zhang Denghui, and Zhang Xiaolan.