MARITIME ALLIANCES AND EU COMPETITION LAW

105 DOMINANT POSITION AND ABUSE INDICATORS IN LINER SHIPPING tion (US-Asia westbound) were nearly 46% lower. Corresponding figures for the Europe-Asia-Europe and Europe-US-Europe trades were -35% (eastbound)/-23% (westbound) and -42% (eastbound)/-12% (westbound), respectively. In contrast, rates for the commodities carried in 2002 are significantly lower than those in 1993. With regard to mega-container vessels (economy of grand scale) another study shows that both Asia-Europe and Asia-North America routes were competi- tive in all scenarios, while it was viable for North American trade only if the feeder and freight costs were low. 122 This volatility could be the natural result of chang- ing trading patterns between the regions involved and a consequence of changing equilibria in world trade that cause the demand for maritime transport from these areas to fluctuate. 123 The particular drop in rates was aggravated therefore, by com- petition from many independents that faced the same need to fill their ships with cargo in these unbalanced trades at the same time that freights were being battered by deflationary trends in contrast to the inflation that prevailed that period. 124 A set of conclusions can be drawn from this: independents (liner, bulk and gen- eral cargo) were subject to higher pressure than their consortia competitors and had to lower their tariffs for reasons of preservation. Competition has therefore been effective since all parties were forced to offer mass discounts in order to de- fend themselves against market uncertainty. Finally, when this crisis passed and the global economy emerged out of the recession, the share of the independents had not reduced. 125 This crisis led to another phenomenon: after 2001, South-East, East and Far East Asia witnessed an unprecedented growth explosion. The Asian 122. Akio Imai and Etsuko Nishimura and Stratos Papadimitriou and Miaojia Liu, “The eco- nomic viability of container mega-ships” (2006) 42(1) Transportation Research Part E : Lo- gistics and Transport Review 21. 123. OECD (2002), op. cit. n. 119 p. 31. The Asian economic crisis of 1997 caused demand for US and European exports to drop, freeing up capacity on Asian in-bound routes. As a re- sult of currency devaluation and competitive advantage due to lower production costs, Asian exports towards the United States and Europe were buoyed by growth. Carriers, in order to supply the capacity necessary to carry Asian exports, were faced with excess ca- pacity on the return leg (and a corresponding need to reposition empty containers). The overall capacity was also growing over this period, as liner operators were receiving deliv- ery of larger ships ordered on the premise of continued steady economic growth in Asia. The result was that carriers slashed prices in an effort to attract and/or retain steadily dwindling cargo. 124. One has to take into account that the real income from the freight rates have been reduced, since, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), global inflation levels between 2000-2019 produced a considerable aggregate, roughly 6% annually on average. <www.imf.org/external/datamapper/PCPIPCH@ WEO/OEMDC> [accessed 23 Sept. 2019]. 125. Maersk/Safmarine (1999), op. cit. n. 71 para 28, where Maersk, an independent ship owner, took over Safmarine, member of the Europe South Africa Conference (ESAC)