TBFP - Maritime Business and Strategy

Discussions and even the introduction of new Sulphur Emission Control Areas are growing, with very little feedback on the actual effects caused by these policies on shipping practices. We evaluate the impact of the stricter 2015 SOx limit on the North Sea SECA ports. Using a Differences-in-Difference model, backed by the elaboration of unique and large panel data on port calls, we found results over a large spectrum of possible adaptation shipping strategies to the policy. We strengthen readiness by comparing results for large and small ports, which are found to be differentiated across vessel characteristics (size, age, sub-type), management practices, the rate of SECA port included in the whole services, and finally, the concentration or spread of operators in specific ports.

The Consortia Block Exemption Regime (CBER) of the European Union (EU) that regulated cooperative working agreements in the container liner industry expired in April 2024. According to the European Commission, the derogatory regime to antitrust competition principles was no longer justified especially due to limited effectiveness, efficiency, and weak consumer benefits. Global strategic alliances and related arrangements are henceforth subject to ordinary competition law and the "specialization agreements" framework.
Based on compliance and enforcement approaches, the aim of this paper is to analyze the key takeaways of the specialization agreements regime compared to the CBER and to discuss its main weaknesses in the face of the managerial practices implemented by GSAs' partners for pursuing market dominance. The results show that a few significant achievements for transport users have been made by the new regulatory framework. On the contrary, while some uncertainties remain, the changing rules shall not disrupt the business conditions and shall comfort the cartel culture of the sector.
These findings contribute to a better understanding of the new EU regulatory framework and raise the question of the EU Commission capacity to frame a consistent regulatory regime for the container liner industry that has significantly evolved throughout the last decades. Policy recommendations are suggested to better grasp the mutations of maritime alliances' members especially on logistic activities and to limit their collective market dominance.

Achieving green and low-carbon sustainable development in the maritime supply chain necessitates coordinated decision-making among three primary entities: governments, shipping companies, and port enterprises. In this paper, a combination of system dynamics (SD) and evolutionary game theory is employed to examine the decision-making behaviors of these three parties and analyze their evolutionary pathways. Relevant data on recent investments by typical enterprises and government subsidies have been collected, and an SD model is utilized to empirically verify the overall evolutionary process of the system and conduct a sensitivity analysis. Our findings indicate that the intensity and stability of government regulatory policies are pivotal in driving the low-carbon transformation of the maritime supply chain. Notably, a nonlinear relationship is observed between the severity of government policies and enterprise decisions. Furthermore, the level of collaboration between port and shipping enterprises in selecting technological pathways directly impacts the effectiveness of emission reductions. Additionally, the extent of low-carbon preference in market demand significantly influences the effectiveness of policies and the strategic choices made by enterprises.