European Liner Affairs Association (ELAA) executive director Chris Bourne said the industry wants more precise guidelines from the European Commission (EC) than the ones issued last month on how the post-conference world would be governed after October 2008.

"Lawyers advise me that there is much still open to interpretation," Mr. Bourne told lawyers at the recent European Maritime Law Organisation's (EMLO) Annual Conference. "We would hope that these potential ambiguities are eliminated in the final version."

Mr Bourne told how the 20 leading container shipping lines in his group would be allowed to act under EU law when Regulation 4056 /86 is repealed next year and the liner conference system becomes illegal in Europe.

But matters are not clear, he said, and there are fears that imprecise wording of the Draft Guidelines, issued by the EC's Directorate General of Competition (DG Comp), will lead to a "repeat of the legal wrangles of years gone by".

Under the new Guidelines, Mr Bourne believed that carriers would be able to legally meet under the auspices of a trade association as long as discussions are based on publicly available information.

"Trade volume data in a suitably aggregated form may be gathered and published. This data need not be 'historic' given how quickly its usefulness can become obsolete. Critical supply and demand forecasting will be allowed as data on both sides of the equation will now be within the public domain. And it will be legal to publish a quarterly price index trade by trade," asserted an ELAA communique.

"We are pleased that DG Comp has taken onboard so many of the practical suggestions that the lines require in order to provide a reliable and efficient service for their customers," said Mr Bourne. "Moreover there are none of the false accusations of collusion in these Draft Guidelines as we have been subject to in the past."

Mr Bourne reiterated that the lines, operating within the conference system had always done so in accordance with law. It remains their palpable intent to continue operating in a similar manner.

"My plea to the commission however persists. The industry requires and deserves clear and precise Guidelines that will direct the lines in their co-operative actions and that will avoid time- and money-wasting legal disputes," Mr Bourne said.