Original news was published on 29 August, 2014

THE world's biggest and second biggest shipping lines, Maersk and MSC, have sought permission from the US Federal Maritime Commission (FMC) to form a vessel sharing agreement called the 2M. Copenhagen's Maersk Line and Geneva's Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC), have submitted their 10-year agreement proposal to the Washington regulatory agency.

The FMC allowed the more ambitious P3 alliance, a union of the top three shipping lines that included CMA CGM, but this was rejected by Chinese regulatory authorities as having too much market share. Washington has 45 days to review the new proposal, though procedings can be suspended if the FMC wants additional information. The new arrangement is a standard vessel sharing agreement, unlike P3, which looked more like a merger to Chinese regulators despite protestations from the participants. In the 2M case, the European Commission and China’s Ministry of Transport will be notified, but do not have to give official clearance to a vessel sharing agreement, which like an airline code share, has independent and rival sales teams selling space of their own and on each other's conveyances.

The document submitted to the FMC covers ports in the northern Europe-Gibraltar range, plus the Med to the US Atlantic, Gulf and Pacific coasts, along with ports in Mexico, Canada, Panama, the Bahamas and Asia to the US. 2M covers Asia-Europe routes but this is of no concern to the FMC. With US trades, 2M parties can discuss and agree on the size, number and types of vessels. They plan to operate 97 ships in US trades ranging from 4,000 to 13,000 TEU.

*NEWS SOURCE