Japan’s “K” Line, MOL and NYK confirmed on Monday January 22nd that joint venture company Ocean Network Express (ONE) had received all necessary merger approvals from local competition authorities.
The new carrier was announced in May 2017 as a joint venture between Japan’s “big three” shipping lines and was formally established in July 2017.
“Following continued negotiations with the competition authority in [South Africa] the joint venture company obtained approval with conditions requiring measures regarding competition law compliance,” the three carriers announced.
Operations are scheduled to begin on April 1st. Unlike the other alliances, which are all cooperation agreements of necessity between separate companies that still compete against each other for business in many ways, ONE isn’t just a strategic alliance between the three companies; it is also a new global transport company comprising parts spun off by its parent firms.ONE is ranked as the sixth-largest entity in the container shipping market with more than 1.4m TEU capacity, following Maersk,which has 3.5m TEU, MSC with about 3.1m TEU, CMA CGM with 2.5m TEU, COSCO with more than 1.8m TEU, and Hapag-Lloyd with 1.5m TEU.