THE US Federal Maritime Commission (FMC) has scheduled a public hearing on February 7 to elaborate on its decision to permit ocean carriers to promptly enforce surcharges aimed at mitigating escalating costs associated with ship diversions due to the worsening security conditions in the Red Sea, reports New York's Journal of Commerce.
Per the US Shipping Act, carriers must give customers a 30-day notice before implementing special charges. However, carriers can seek a waiver from this rule by petitioning the FMC.
In recent weeks, the commission has granted such waivers as carriers found themselves compelled to swiftly reroute vessels around southern Africa, seeking to avoid increasing attacks on commercial shipping from Yemen.
"This is the biggest challenge to freedom of the seas in decades," said FMC chairman Daniel Maffei.
"This is a very serious situation, and we want to make sure that everybody - the people who are asking questions but also the people who aren't sure where to ask questions - have a forum that we can deal with those things in a public context."
Some shippers, such as the US-based Agriculture Transportation Coalition (AgTC) have pushed the FMC to force carriers to offer more transparency into the economics behind the recent surcharges.
"Going forward, I believe the FMC should develop a process by which it will require the carrier to submit the amount of the proposed surcharge and the additional costs that it seeks to cover," said AgTC executive director Peter Friedmann.
"In that way, the commission can determine if the surcharge is reasonable before granting the waiver."
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