This Round Table meeting brought together competition experts with researchers on maritime shipping, rail freight and logistics to identify critical competition issues and appropriate regulatory responses. An examination of the strategies of transport and logistics companies reveals that vertical integration can yield efficiencies but usually reflects a need to improve the use of expensive fixed assets rather than control all parts of the supply chain. This usually explains why shipping lines acquire terminal operators. Horizontal acquisitions, where similar companies serving the same market merge, are more likely to raise competition concerns. Problems are particularly prone to arise at bottleneck infrastructure facilities. The adequacy of remedies available to regulators when competition is threatened and a framework for examining competition in global transport and logistics businesses are outlined. This report includes a summary of discussions and presentations on: Empirical evidence for integration and disintegration of maritime shipping, ports and logistics activities (A Fremont, France); Market power and vertical and horizontal integration in the maritime shipping and port industry (E Van de Voorde and T Vanelslander, Belgium); Railway and ports organisation in the Republic of South Africa and Turkey (L S Thompson, USA),; and Are horizontal mergers and vertical integration and problem? (S Pilsbury, S Mueller and A Meaney, United Kingdom).
Samenvatting