The Federal Maritime Commission is accepting comments through June 30 on its intent to revoke exemptions allowing the rates, charges, classifications, rules, or regulations of some controlled carriers to become effective with less than 30 days’ notice.
A controlled carrier is a vessel-operating common carrier owned or controlled by a foreign government. Controlled carriers are subject to enhanced regulatory oversight to ensure that they do not abuse their subsidized position in the marketplace. The tariff rates or charges of controlled carriers may generally not become effective until the 30th day after their publication.
The FMC has previously granted exemptions from this requirement to ten carriers (most recently in 2018), but seven of these have since been removed from the Commission’s list of controlled carriers for various reasons, such as no longer offering carriage in the U.S. trades or having been bought by private companies. At the same time, the FMC has not revoked the exemptions granted to these carriers. “Rather than allowing that to create an expectation that an exemption remains valid through such changes in circumstances,” the FMC states, it is now giving notice that it intends to revoke these exemptions.
Exemptions granted to carriers that remain on the FMC’s controlled carriers list would continue to be valid but may be reviewed in the future.
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