Article 9 Obligations attaching to exemption
United Kingdom
The obligations provided for in paragraphs 2 to of this Article shall be attached to the exemptions provided for in Article 3 and Article 13(1).
There shall be real and effective consultations between users or their representative organisations, on the one hand, and the consortium, on the other hand, for the purpose of seeking solutions on all important matters, other than purely operational matters of minor importance, concerning the conditions and quality of scheduled maritime transport services offered by the consortium or its members.
These consultations shall take place whenever requested by any of the abovementioned parties.
The consultations must take place, except in cases of force majeure, prior to the implementation of the measure forming the subject of the consultation. if, for reasons of force majeure, the members of the consortium are obliged to put a decision into effect before consultations have taken place, any consultations requested shall take place within 10 working days of the date of the request. Save in the case of such force majeure, to which reference shall be made in the notice announcing the measure, no public announcement of the measure shall be made before the consultations.
The consultations shall take place in accordance with the following procedural stages:
prior to the consultation, details of the subject matter of the consultation shall be notified in writing by the consortium to the other party;
an exchange of views shall take place between the parties either in writing or at meetings or both in the course of which the representatives of the consortium members and of the shippers taking part shall have authority to reach a common point of view and the parties shall use their best efforts to achieve that end;
where no common point of view can be reached despite the efforts of both parties, the disagreement shall be acknowledged and publicly announced. It may be brought to the Commission's attention by either party;
a reasonable period for the completion of consultations may be fixed, if possible, by common agreement between the two parties. That period shall be not less than one month, save in exceptional cases or by agreement between the parties.
The conditions concerning the maritime transport services provided by the consortium and its members, including those relating to the quality of such services and all relevant modifications, shall be made available on request to transport users at reasonable cost and shall be available for examination without cost at the offices of the consortium members, or the consortium itself, and their agents.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Any consortium claiming the benefit of this Regulation must be able, on being given a period of notice which the Commission or the Member States' competition authorities shall determine on a case-by-case basis and which shall be not less than one month, to demonstrate at the request of the Commission or the Member States' competition authorities that the conditions and obligations imposed by Articles 5 to 8 and paragraphs 2 and 3 of this Article are met. It must submit the consortium agreement in question to the Commission or the Member States' competition authorities as appropriate within that period.
Annotations
Textual amendments
- F1
- F2