‘Lack of evidence’ saw ACCC drop logistics worries

<p>Toll Holdings will be audited annually for the next five years to make sure it is not abusing its power over the stevedoring and logistics sector if it wins control of Patrick Corp, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission indicated today(Tuesday, March 14).</p> <p>Toll has undertaken not to discriminate against downstream operations, such as freight forwarding on either service quality or price, or to favour its own downstream operations.</p> <p>In his January 18 statement, ACCC chair Graeme Samuel said that vertical integration of port and logistics activities was inevitable, but that he was concerned that the merger could prevent two strongly competing players in this market. </p> <p>In the end, the concerns over port logistics failed to be decisive once specific issues on east-west rail were cleared. </p> <p>Commissioner Stephen King said this morning that port logistics had been "included as an amber issue in the first statement, ahead of more market inquiries, and was included in the statement of claim to the Federal Court".</p> <p>Dr King said: "The main problem was in getting evidence that Toll could do something that Patrick could not or would not do at the moment, or that Toll could do any differently."</p> <p>Wwith only 10% of containers moving out of the ports on intermodal rail, it was hard to find a large enough body of evidence, so the ACCC would rely on undertakings and auditing to deal with any future behaviour, he said.</p> <p>"It is a second-best outcome,&#8221 Dr King said. &#8220We always prefer not to have keep an eye over people’s shoulders. </p> <p>"Parties can complain if they believe that undertakings on discrimination are being broken, and there will be annual independent auditing."</p> <br />