FMC to Conduct Hearing Regarding Port Demurrage Charges

During the West Coast port labor disruptions two years ago many shippers incurred significant detention and demurrage charges for containers that were stranded at the Oakland and Long Beach ports for days or weeks. CLFP members and staff met with the chair of the Federal Maritime Commission (FMC) to discuss the economic impact of the situation and to emphasize that existing rules and practices by the carriers and marine terminal operators were unfair to shippers.

To prevent a repeat of this problem, a group of 25 associations filed a petition asking the FMC to develop a policy statement to clarify conduct that may constitute unreasonable practices with regard to the assessment of detention and demurrage by ocean carriers and marine terminals. The purpose being for the policy statement to provide policy guidance to address situations where the beneficial cargo owner or transportation provider is not able to pick up or drop off a container and equipment because of issues beyond their control, such as congestion, weather, work slowdowns, etc. More than 115 companies and trade associations, including CLFP, provided comments when the petition was filed last December. An overwhelming majority of the comments supported the petition.

In response, FMC announced that it will hold a hearing on January 16-17 on the petition that was filed last December by the Coalition for Fair Port Practices, which represents numerous importers, exporters, drayage operators and customs brokers.