As the global air cargo anti-trust investigation broadens, its hardto ignore its increasingly witch hunt-like tenor.
Call me naïve, but it strikes me that the issue is largely not one of purposeful wrongdoing and sinister intentions, but rather a case of somewhat unwittingly crossing the legal grey zone.
With anti-trust investigators around the globe scrounging about like hard-nosed murder detectives, it’s hard not to come away with the impression that the transgressions of a fair chunk of the air freight industry were simply a well-coordinated, meticulously thought out scam. Many would argue that quite on the contrary, the discussion of market information, often including rate trends and surcharges, is a fundamental legacy of the air freight industry over the past decades. More to the point, these came about as a direct result of the unique nature of the air cargo industry ¨C one defined by a high degree of regulation, massive capital costs and unique nature of trade flows that almost always result in severe imbalances.
Lets face it, this is hardly an industry woven with the threads of a free market economy. Bi-lateral traffic rights, national ownership restrictions, capital controls and so on, not only continue to cripple the industry but bear great responsibility for creating this so-called ¡®cartel’ behaviour. Had the authorities spend as much time examining how to move forward and fi x the antiquated regulations that are hobbling the industry as they have playing super sleuth in the anti-trust game, everybody would be better off .
The investigation took a decidedly sinister turn when a US-based Qantas executive was personally held accountable for the carrier’s anti-trust transgressions, fi ned US$20,000 and sentenced to eight months in jail.
Industry executives speak of a climate of fear that gripping the industry like some 1950’s-style McCarthyism, where attendees at trade meetings and shows fear talking about industry developments with one another lest they fi nd themselves subpoenaed in the hotel and their laptops confiscated. Th is can only have detrimental effect on an industry that lives a Spartan existence at the best of times, but now faces the bleak prospect of ever higher oil prices.
The ultimate irony of course, is the fact that the ocean shipping industry is given specific anti-trust immunity for practicing an even more overt and pre-meditated version of the same discussions based on the fact it is a ¡®unique’ industry.
The argument is increasingly wearing thin with these same anti-trust folks, however, and now has a run-out date tagged to it by the EU. But at least for the shipping industry they were extended the courtesy of discussions and warnings from authorities. Sadly the recent death of the president of the Japan Aircargo Forwarders Association (JAFA), Masayoshi Dobashi, provides a tragic footnote that that suggests the widening probe may likely have an even higher individual toll.
While it would be overly presumptuous to assume a direct correlation between Mr Dobashi’s death from an apparent heart attack, it’s no secret within the freight forwarding community that the recent investigation into Japanese forwarders and the suggestion that the JAFA was some sort of covert meeting ground to scheme up cartel deals, greatly upset and out-right off ended Mr Dobashi. One is left wondering what will be the final outcome of this global witch hunt and how many more victims it will claim. And not forgetting the most pertinent question: Was the public truly served well by the nature of this anti-trust action?