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Wellboat. (Photo: Solvtrans)
Competitiveness Defense Court to study wellboat firms’ market collusion
CHILE
Saturday, July 14, 2018, 01:30 (GMT + 9)
The Court for the Defense of Free Competitiveness (TDLC) has accepted the preliminary ruling filed by the shipping company Solvtrans Chile, which requests that the Armasur trade association show how it has been organized with companies of live fish carriers (wellboats) to prevent the free competitiveness in Chile’s southern waters.
This way prepares the presentation of a future lawsuit for anti-competitive practices before said court.
The legal action against the shipping industry was interposed so that the main leaders of Armasur -- who are also the general managers and administrators of the large shipping companies in southern Chile -- show the documents and background registering that they have coordinated to hinder and impede the access of new players to the salmon industry market, El Mostrador reported.
What is requested of the TDLC does not prevent the National Economic Prosecutor's Office from carrying out investigations in the same market, following the facts denounced by Solvtrans Chile in its presentation.
Solvtrans Chile general manager Victor Vargas argues that Armasur has made "several efforts seeking to exclude other shipping companies in the bidding processes of the companies producing salmon, since Solvtrans Chile has a modern fleet of wellboats." These boats, he explains, "are true 'floating aquariums' that move live salmon from aquaculture centres to slaughtering plants, under high quality standards with the most modern technology available in this marine area."
In the document presented, Solvtrans Chile stated that some of the practices of Armasur and its competitors were carried out during 2017, while at least three tenders of wellboats services were open for salmon producing companies, which represented almost 30 per cent of the total transport of live salmon from the country.
"With this measure that was accepted by the Court, we hope that the illegal and anticompetitive action of Armasur will be evident, showing that the companies grouped in this union do not accept free competitiveness, where new actors come to contribute better technology, better conditions for merchant marine workers and also better, and more technology to sail in Chile’s southern water," said Vargas.
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