THE British Freight Transport Association (FTA) said it "looks forward to more transparency in rates following the European Commission's decision to ban general rate increases as we know them.

The commission launched an investigation in 2013 over "concerns that publishing future price increase intentions may do harm and be in breach of EU antitrust rules".

The FTA noted that 15 shipping lines involved in the three-year enquiry into "price signalling" have agreed to change future pricing regimes.

Wikipedia says price signalling is "information conveyed to consumers and producers via the price charged for a product or service, which provides a signal to increase or decrease supply and/or increase or decrease demand of the priced item".

Said the FTA: "The lines have agreed that they will cease to announce general rate increases and publish the actual prices available to customers on an individual basis."

Such announcements will be binding on the carriers as maximum rates, but carriers will be free to offer lower prices.

"While the lines will not be the subject to fines, they have agreed to stop the behaviour, which the commission considers unlawful, and undertaken to improve the system of price announcements in future," the FTA concluded.

FTA policy director Chris Welsh, who is also secretary general of the pro-regulator Global Shippers Forum, said: "We look forward to a new clear and open approach by the shipping line operators which will remove the need for our members to resort to court proceedings."

The commission noted that 15 container lines have regularly announced their intended future increases of freight prices on their websites, via the press, or in other ways.

The carriers are: China Shipping, CMA CGM, Cosco, Evergreen, Hamburg Sud, Hanjin, Hapag-Lloyd, HMM, Maersk, MOL, MSC, NYK, OOCL, UASC and Zim.

The commission noted that General Rate Increases or GRIs do not indicate the fixed final price for the service concerned, but only the amount of the increase in US-dollars per TEU.

GRIs are made typically three to five weeks before their intended implementation date, and during that time some or all of the other carriers announce similar intended rate increases for the same or similar route and same or similar implementation date.

Announced GRIs have sometimes been postponed or modified by some carriers, possibly aligning them with the GRI announced by other carriers.

"The commission has concerns that General Rate Increase announcements may not provide full information on new prices to customers, but merely allow carriers to explore each other's pricing intentions and coordinate their behaviour," said the commission statement.

Carriers now agree to stop publishing and communicating General Rate Increase announcements, ie, changes to prices expressed solely as an amount or percentage of the change.

Rates carriers announce will benefit from further transparency and include at least the five main elements of the total price (base rate, bunker charges, security charges, terminal handling charges and peak season charges).

Price announcements will not be made more than 31 days before they enter into force, which is usually when customers start booking in significant volumes.