Transport, Trade, and Regulation News

The move by the carrier comes as the FMC is in the midst of a rulemaking process around detention and demurrage billing mandated by the passage of the Ocean Shipping Reform Act of 2022 last June.

The container shipping industry needs to collaborate in finding alternatives to fossil fuels rather than each player following their own path, ONE CEO Jeremy Nixon told TPM23.

MSC’s chief executive told TPM23 that the company’s hefty orderbook signals to customers that the carrier remains chiefly committed to ocean shipping, rather than selling an integrated supply chain service.

US shippers are entering an era of greater risk in China trade, retired Gen. David Petraeus warned, but the two largest global economies will remain linked despite moves to source goods elsewhere.

The container shipping market is quickly moving on from the pandemic period and into a phase that is at once familiar but also entirely new and unpredictable, writes Peter Tirschwell.

Major container lines have agreed to an ambitious 2030 deadline to migrate from paper bills of lading to digital versions as resistance to such initiatives weakens.

A decision by an FMC administrative judge on chassis usage will shake up the way chassis are provisioned for ocean containers, but there are several unknowns on what the future will look like at ports and rail hubs.

The US Department of Transportation’s Maritime Administration is on the hunt for port projects that mitigate climate change, among other aims, as it lays out grant funding opportunities for 2023.

The Federal Maritime Commission has exercised its first use of new legal authority under OSRA-22 requiring an ocean carrier to justify the reason behind levying a congestion surcharge against a shipper.

As the size of China’s workforce declines and production challenges increase, US retailers are shifting to global sourcing strategies, with each sector looking for the business model that meets its particular requirements.

The announced dissolution of the 2M Alliance raises the question of what additional large-scale dominoes might be toppling over in the next few years in the container shipping sector, writes analyst Lars Jensen.

A Federal Maritime Commission member’s attempt to force marine terminals and ocean carriers to share more data under OSRA-22 has ended with the normalization of the ocean freight market.

Last year’s container surge prompted a harder look at information sharing for container availability and port operations, which New York-New Jersey marine terminals are responding to with new data.

As federal and state laws aim to make per diem charges more transparent, California trucking groups say a unified appointment system across the Los Angeles and Long Beach port complex would go a long way toward that goal.

Pandemic-driven acceleration in the usage of its digital shipping document product is a sign that blockchain does work in niche applications in global logistics, according to CargoX.

Pressure on shippers to take a more active role in bringing down so-called Scope 3 emissions covering the activities of a company’s third-party vendors — including transportation — has increased in recent years.

Whether OSRA-22 — and increased FMC scrutiny — will produce tangible changes in how carriers and terminals calculate and convey detention and demurrage charges is still yet to be seen, as inaccurate invoices continue to plague shippers.

The Ocean Shipping Reform Act’s export provisions need further clarification to explain instances when US ag exports don’t get on a ship, the US Department of Agriculture said.

The Federal Maritime Commission turned away a petition from ocean carriers and marine terminals claiming that limiting liability on per diem billing would translate into worsening port congestion and pollution.

Some factors, such as the sharper attention both multinationals and smaller mom-and-pop sellers are paying to their supply chains, seem to be charting a new trajectory and are poised to help shape the freight sector this year.

The filing is just the latest in a barrage of complaints made against various container lines with the FMC in recent months, a flurry accelerated by major reform of US shipping law that went into effect in June.

Although the precise cost of inclusion of container shipping in the EU’s Emissions Trading System is not fully known, it will likely exceed $10 billion annually, according to Journal of Commerce analyst Lars Jensen.

At the core of the concerns expressed by carriers and terminal operators are what they say are the limits the FMC’s proposed rule on detention and demurrage would place on their ability to bill truckers and consignees.

The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023 requires the US Department of Transportation to make recommendations for how Congress can invest in and increase the resilience of the US marine transportation system.

Shipping’s transition to zero-carbon energy sources will be costly, but shippers are showing a growing willingness to pay to decarbonize their ocean transport supply chains.

The anti-retaliation provision was included in US shipping reform because some shippers have been hesitant to lodge complaints against carriers for fear of being blacklisted.

The US Federal Maritime Commission is poring over feedback about detention and demurrage billing practices from more than 100 industry stakeholders as the agency seeks to implement a key provision of OSRA-22.

MEPC79 delegates will also be considering a basket of measures that can integrate both technical and carbon pricing elements as the maritime industry transitions to more renewable fuels.

Two of the five Federal Maritime Commissioners want to put agreements, particularly those among ocean carriers, on a tighter leash, by allowing the agency to issue the same injunctions as can courts.

Richard Lidinsky, a former chairman for the US Federal Maritime Commission, leaves a legacy of agency reform whose work echoes through the Ocean Shipping Reform Act of 2022.

The FMC is attempting to define when it’s reasonable for ocean carriers to refuse export cargo, but some shippers say the agency is making it too easy for that to happen.

The German Federal Cartel Office argues that large container carriers do not satisfy “with a sufficient degree of certainty” the conditions required for their exemption from European competition law.

Of the 12 projects the US Department of Transportation is funding, 11 will receive support for developing container-on-barge services.

The FMC-sponsored study comes as the ultra-tight supply of chassis in the US has been a contributing factor in port and rail congestion for well over a year.

Claims by shippers that the European block exemption was dampening market competition are “at odds with reality,” ocean carriers have told European regulators.

An Indiana-based shipper alleges it tried to resolve incomplete invoice issues directly with Flexport, but says the NVO failed to provide necessary information and withheld additional containers.

With US maritime reform now on the books, the head of the FMC says Congress is paying close attention to the end-to-end supply chain beyond ocean carriers.

While US ports would operate their own data system through the FMC’s Marine Transportation Data Initiative, the agency would standardize what data needs to be shared and when.

Mediterranean Shipping Co. maintains it cannot produce discovery in an FMC complaint stemming back to July 2021 because of Swiss law and is now disputing a judge’s determination to issue default judgment.

Sustainability ambitions from the world’s largest cargo owners are ramping up pressure on carriers to accelerate their transition to zero-carbon fuels or risk losing high-volume business in the coming decades.