AGCM

PRESS RELEASE

ANTITRUST: OVER 4 MILLION EUROS IN SANCTIONS

FOR A SECRET CARTEL OF SHIPPING AGENTS AT THE PORT OF GENOA

Fines for 15 companies and 2 trade associations. Price fixing agreement exposed thanks to an operator who presented the Authority with detailed information and a petition for clemency. Sanctions reduced by half for a second company for providing additional elements of service to the inquiry.

Over 4 million euros in sanctions for a secret cartel that shipping agents and trade associations of the sector had engaged in for over 5 years. The Antitrust resolved to fine 15 different companies operating in the service sector of shipping agencies along with two trade associations, Assagenti (the main trade association for shipping agencies) and Spediporto (the most representative trade association for the forwarding agencies operating on national territory). Maersk Italia (a member of the Danish group under the same name) submitted a request for clemency and was exempted from fines for providing documentation that enabled the Authority to expose the cartel. Fines were reduced by 50% for Hapag Lloyd Italy, the second company to present a request for clemency, for providing the Authority with additional documents of service to the investigative proceedings.

The agreement, which lasted from February 2004 through December 2009, if not longer, involved the fixing of prices for agency services (preparation and issue of documents, such as bills of laden for exported goods and 'delivery orders' for imported goods) , known as 'fixed duties,' in violation of article 101 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.

The information supplied by the two 'repentant' companies enabled Antitrust officials to prepare 'targeted' inspections for gathering additional documentation as evidence of the agreement. According to the Antitrust, a complex but unitary agreement was applied from two directions.  During a series of meetings of the Port Commission, first of all, the companies in question coordinated the price fixing of fixed duties and (from 2008 on) the associated loyalty discount applied to forwarding agents (the horizontal profile of the agreement).  Secondly, Assagenti and Spediporto took charge of incorporating the companies' agreement into the accords of 2004 and 2007, using a series of memorandums to "recommend" compliance with the accords (the vertical profile of the agreement).

The cartel being fined exerted a significant impact on the market for maritime transport:  while most of the operators involved in the meetings were based in the Port of Genoa, many of the documents gathered during the investigation demonstrate reveal how these prices exerted an impact by acting as agreed 'reference' values for the transactions taking place in other Mediterranean ports, such as Gioia Tauro, La Spezia and the Italian port system in general. The cartel also made it possible to define fixed duty prices that were too high to foster a genuinely competitive atmosphere, resulting in clear benefits for both shipping agents and forwarding agents, who would 'appropriate' the loyalty discounts without passing them on to final customers while 'endorsing' the tariff increases over to them as well.

The Authority calculated the respective sanctions on the basis of the individual conduct of each specific company while the agreement was in effect and the extent of their individual collaboration during the course of the investigation.

The sanctions imposed:

Rome, 16 March 2012