EC BANS EUROPE/ASIA CAPACITY AGREEMENT
The European Commission has formally banned the now-ended Europe Asia
Trades Agreement of shipping lines.
The EATA pact, terminated by its members in September 1997, aimed to
reduce excess capacity by setting utilization thresholds for each
participating carrier in the Europe/Asia container trade.
The EC said that the agreement intended to increase prices by regulating
capacity.
The EC has never allowed capacity-setting agreements in the export
trades from the European Union, a spokesman for the commission said. In
1994, the EC had outlawed a similar capacity agreement by the
Trans-Atlantic Agreement.