COMPETITION authorities in South Africa have approved K Line, MOL and NYK Line’s containership joint venture Ocean Network Express. 

It means the venture has now received approval from competition authorities in all the jurisdictions in which it will conduct activities and has the all-clear to start operations as scheduled on April 1, the trio said in a statement. 

ONE had already received approval from all applicable jurisdictions as of end-June 2017 with the exception of the South Africa.

“Following continued negotiations with the competition authority in that country, the joint venture company today obtained approval with conditions requiring its measures regarding competition law compliance,” the statement said. “The service commencement schedule for the new company remains unchanged, with operations slated to begin on April 1.”

In October last year, ONE was said to be looking to take over all contracts with shippers from the three Japanese giants. 

“We very much hope to be able to bring all of those customers to ONE,” the company’s global chief executive officer Jeremy Nixon told the audience at a panel discussion during the 2017 TPM Asia Conference in Shenzhen.

Mr Nixon said the trio would move the current contracts across to ONE, with the new joint venture honouring them.

Moreover, ONE would negotiate with clients directly for new contracts starting from April 2018 — by the time the new entity should be fully ready, he added.

But if a customer has a contract with K Line, MOL or NYK, for example, on the January-December 2018 basis, ONE would also honour those contracts, with clients being able to book directly with the new company from April 2018.

18 Jan 2018 | News | Lloyd’s List