Much of the commentary in the media about the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission’s investigation into the shipping industry now appear to be hot air blown about by self-interested parties.
Ahead of the publication of this year’s Container Stevedoring Monitoring Report, Shipping Australia met with senior officials from the ACCC recently to provide an extensive written and verbal brief about the current shipping environment.
During that meeting, we queried the ACCC about the investigation into shipping.
The truth may very well underwhelm you.
Comments by Rod Sims
Rod Sims, chairman of the ACCC, told national broadcast media that there were two investigations. One is a “narrowly focused investigation” in relation to containers. The other was into the broader issue of “shipping costs, the cost of freight”.
The ACCC officials noted that the “narrow” investigation is a specific investigation and the ACCC will not enter into discussion about it. So, whatever it is, no-one outside the ACCC knows anything about it. Remember: the mere fact of an investigation does not prove anything. We would suggest that until, or even if, any information is released into the public sphere, then there is no reasonable basis to draw any inference of any kind at all.
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The second “investigation” appears to not even be an investigation at all
As Mr Sims said in his broadcast TV interview about the broader issue, “we’re going to look at that in the context of our monitoring report which will come out in November”.
So it’s pretty clear from the broadcast that the ACCC is looking into container shipping is part of the completely normal process of researching the container shipping markets, which it does every year for the purposes of publishing its annual container stevedoring report.
That’s not an investigation. It’s research.
However, for the avoidance of doubt and to specifically clarify matters, we specifically asked, and were told, that:
- There are no terms of reference for an investigation
- There will be no inquiry as part of an investigation
- There will be no call for submissions to an investigation
- There will be no public hearings as part of an investigation
- No specific investigation-related report will be published
