ON 30 June 2026, the Australian Shippers Alliance (ASA) lodged a formal complaint with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) requesting an investigation into the commercial operation of Part X of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010.
The significance of that step becomes clearer when viewed against the history of Part X.
The ACCC's Shipping Investigations Register records no Part X investigation since a complaint lodged by the Australian Peak Shippers Association (APSA) in 2005 concerning the Australia to Europe Liner Association (AELA).
That investigation also involved terminal handling charges (THCs).
Some 21 years later, the commercial arrangements surrounding those costs look very different.
The 2005 dispute arose during negotiations between APSA and AELA under section 10.41 of Part X.
AELA proposed an increase in outward terminal handling charges following an increase in the stevedoring charges being incurred by its member shipping lines.
APSA sought access to the underlying stevedoring contracts so that it could verify whether the proposed increase reflected the costs actually being incurred.
AELA resisted disclosure of those contracts on confidentiality grounds.
The ACCC's draft report considered whether AELA had provided APSA with the information reasonably necessary to enable effective negotiation under section 10.41.
AELA disagreed with aspects of the ACCC's draft findings. Its response argued, among other things, that sufficient information and verification had been provided without disclosure of the commercially confidential contracts.
But behind that disagreement sat a commercial structure which does not appear to have been in dispute. The stevedore provided services to the shipping lines. The shipping lines incurred the stevedoring charges. The shipping lines then sought to recover those costs from shippers through terminal handling charges.
The Department of Transport and Regional Services described the arrangement equally clearly. It recorded that APSA wished to verify an increase in THCs levied by AELA which arose from an increase in stevedoring charges to the lines.
That commercial pathway matters.
The 2005 dispute was not simply about access to a contract.
It demonstrated an important feature of Part X.
International liner shipping conferences were provided exemptions from elements of Australia's competition law, allowing shipping lines to collaborate in ways which otherwise would have been restricted.
In return, Part X provided Australian shippers with countervailing rights, including rights to negotiate with conference lines over shipping arrangements and to obtain information reasonably necessary for those negotiations.
The Department described this as a countervailing-power model designed to balance the ability of ocean carriers to act collectively with strengthened negotiating capacity for Australian shippers.
Its description of the principle was particularly clear: “The essence of Part X is to provide a balanced framework for the interplay of liner exemptions and shippers' rights to negotiate.”
That balance is central to the question ASA has now put to the ACCC.
The international container shipping market of 2026 bears little resemblance to that of 2005.
Traditional conference structures have largely given way to different forms of operational cooperation between shipping lines.
The landside charging model which has developed since 2017 means significant terminal and empty container park costs are now imposed directly upon transport operators accessing those facilities
Shipping lines have expanded their activities beyond the traditional port-to-port shipping service into broader logistics offerings.
Terminal operators have also expanded beyond the terminal gate into road, rail, warehousing and freight forwarding.
And, importantly, the commercial pathway through which substantial terminal and associated costs are recovered has changed.
The landside charging model which has developed since 2017 means significant terminal and empty container park costs are now imposed directly upon transport operators accessing those facilities. Those costs ultimately flow through the supply chain to Australian importers and exporters.
The issue ASA has raised is therefore not simply whether those charges are too high.
There is a more fundamental commercial question.
In 2005, the argument concerned whether shippers had sufficient information to negotiate effectively over a terminal cost being passed through by their shipping lines.
In 2026, the question is different:
Has a significant component of the cost of providing and supporting the liner shipping service moved outside the commercial relationship in which Part X gave Australian shippers their countervailing negotiating rights, while Part X continues to provide parties to registered conference agreements with exemptions from certain cartel provisions of Australia's competition law?
That question goes directly to the relationship between the procurement of operational capability by shipping lines and the commercial pathways through which the costs of that capability are recovered.
Stevedoring and empty container management are integral operational components of the international container shipping service. Shipping lines procure the terminal capability required to handle their vessels and containers and determine the operational pathways through which empty containers are returned and managed.
What has changed is the commercial pathway through which significant elements of the cost associated with those activities are recovered. Increasingly, those costs are imposed directly into the landside chain rather than recovered through the shipping line–shipper commercial relationship.
That is the change ASA believes warrants examination.
There is a tendency in current policy discussion to focus on what regulatory arrangements might replace or supplement the existing framework.
Those discussions are important.
But Part X remains part of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 today.
Its balancing provisions therefore remain relevant today.
The immediate question is not whether Australia should eventually adopt a different regulatory model. It is whether the legislation presently in force is operating as intended against the commercial architecture that now exists.
There is an interesting precedent in the 2005 investigation.
AELA advised the Registrar that the conference would dissolve in March 2006, meaning any eventual recommendations could have little practical consequence for that particular agreement.
Despite that, the Department considered that ACCC findings on the principles raised by APSA would still benefit the administration of Part X and improve understanding of what the legislation required of the parties.
The principle was therefore considered important beyond the immediate dispute.
The same consideration arises today.
ASA's complaint follows six to seven months of research, industry engagement and legal consideration of the commercial arrangements supporting Australia's international liner shipping market.
During that period ASA has engaged with the ACCC, the Registrar of Liner Shipping and the Australian Government.
On 30 June, we formally asked the ACCC to investigate.
The complaint does not ask the ACCC to determine whether landside charges are simply "too high".
ASA's complaint follows six to seven months of research, industry engagement and legal consideration of the commercial arrangements supporting Australia's international liner shipping market
It asks the Commission to examine whether the commercial pathways through which costs associated with the provision of international liner shipping services are now recovered remain consistent with the operation and intent of Part X.
ASA has subsequently sought an update from the Commission and offered to provide whatever further information may assist its consideration of the matter.
We await its advice.
The 2005 Part X investigation provides a useful historical marker.
At that time the argument was about transparency: could Australian shippers obtain enough information about the shipping lines' stevedoring costs to negotiate effectively over the terminal handling charges being passed through to them?
More than two decades on, the question has moved.
The commercial structures have changed.
The operating models have changed.
The pathway through which substantial terminal and empty container management costs are recovered has changed.
But Part X remains.
And so does the fundamental policy balance between the rights afforded to liner shipping operators and the countervailing rights Parliament provided to Australian shippers.
ASA's complaint asks whether that balance continues to operate as intended in the market that exists today.
After 21 years of commercial change, that is a question worth investigating.
DCN invites readers' respectful feedback on this article in the interest of generating industry conversation.