In Re: National Association of Containers Freight Stations,Chennai Chapter and Trailer Owners Association

Abstract

On June 20,2022, a complaint was filed by the National Association of Container Freight Stations, Chennai Chapter (‘Informant’), against Trailer Owners Association (‘OP-1’), Trailer Organisers Association (‘OP-2’), Port Contractors Welfare Association (‘OP-3’), Chennai Trailer Owners Association ( ‘OP-4’), Tamil Nadu Trailer Owners Association (‘OP-5’), Royapuram Trailer Owners Association (‘OP-6’), Interstate Container Transport Owners Association (‘OP7’), Confederation of Surface Transport, Madhavaram, Chennai (‘OP-8’), Chennai Harbour Trailer Owners Association (‘OP-9’), Chennai Kanchi Rhiruvakkur Trailer Owner Welfare Association (‘OP-10’) (collectively, ‘OPs’) The complainant alleged that OPs were colluding with each other in order to fix the freight tariffs for the services of the trailers. It was also alleged that OPs were imposing certain restrictions on the Informant and other container freight operators (‘CFO’) which were in violation of Sections 3(3)(a) and 3(3)(b) of the Competition Act. The Informant alleged that in various meetings during 2010 to 2018 in which following are anti-competitive decisions were taken: (a) In the first meeting, it was decided that all members of the informant be restricted from plying more than 20 56 Economic and Commercial Laws trailers. (b) In the second meeting, on 09.08.2014, it was determined that, individual rate for trailer services would be hiked throughout the board, i.e., by 900/- for 20 feet containers, and 1400/- for 40 feet containers. After that, the Chennai Trailer Owners Association, i.e., 14 Associations and 3 Unions sent a letter to all CFS on January 27, 2015, regulating CFS operations in terms of the maximum number of vehicles that they may run and announcing that the CFS shall not increase their vehicle fleet. The CCI