TradeLens, the blockchain shipping initiative from Maersk and IBM, involves a collaboration with five of the six largest container shippers in the world. The brands include
MSC, CMA-CGM,
Hapag-Lloyd and ONE. However, the amended U.S. Shipping Act of 1984 has clauses restricting cooperation between shipping companies.
Any exceptions to the antitrust provisions have to be cleared by the antitrust watchdog, the Federal Maritime Commission (FMC). As highlighted by lawyers
Winston & Straw, the FMC has published a
Cooperative Working Agreement to which the shippers will sign up and gives them limited exceptions.
It allows the shippers to publish and subscribe to event data on cargo moving through a supply chain, including events associated with documents. Additionally, it covers storing structured and unstructured documents which can be shared with permissioned parties. Finally, it authorizes application programming interfaces (APIs) and user interfaces such as web pages to enable the viewing of event data, milestones, documents, and to manage user permissions.
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