Container shipping: conditional clearance from the European commission to the merger of UASC and Hapag-Lloyd
On 23rd November 2016 The European Commission provided its conditional approval to a merger between the German container shipping line Hapag-Lloyd and the United Arab Shipping Company.
The said merger will create the world’s fifth largest shipping firm, with access to the Asia-to-Europe trade route and the trans-Atlantic and trans-Pacific routes.
The clearance is conditional on the withdrawal of UASC from a consortium on the trade routes between Northern Europe and North America, where the merged entity would have faced insufficient competitive constraint.