Excerpts of a statement by Federal Maritime Commissioner William P. Doyle in Maritime Executive:
Yesterday, I voted to reject the Tripartite Agreement proposed by Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha, Ltd. (K Line); Mitsui O.S.K. Lines Ltd. (MOL); and Nippon Yusen Kaisha (NYK). This agreement was unanimously rejected by the Commissioners on the Federal Maritime Commission (FMC).
This decision by the FMC in no way precludes the Japanese carriers from merging their container trade business units into a single stand-alone company. Rather, the vote recognizes that the FMC cannot approve certain actions that would allow the three Japanese companies to act as a merged entity prior to actually merging. The Shipping Act does not provide the Federal Maritime Commission with authority to review and approve mergers.
… Separate from the jurisdictional question, FMC received public comments concerning the ability of the Parties under the Agreement to jointly negotiate and contract with U.S. domestic services such as harbor tugs, barges, feeders, equipment lessors and other American based service providers prior to the creation and operation of the new entity. Remarkably, similar language has been inserted in a number of recent agreement filings only to be withdrawn. My position is clear: I am opposed to allowing ocean common carriers to team up and use their FMC-granted limited antitrust immunity to collectively negotiate rates with U.S. maritime service providers, that have no counterbalancing FMC-granted authority to collectively bargain in return. The Parties to the Tripartite Agreement, to their credit, ultimately made several attempts to address these concerns with revised language.