Shippers have spent twenty years lobbying Brussels about the unfairness of price-fixing by shipping conferences. Their persistence has finally paid off; from October this year, the Far Eastern Freight Conference and the Transatlantic Conference will be disbanded. New guidelines on pricing and information-sharing are expected to be issued by Brussels in September. This means that there will be a true market in shipping rates – but the disadvantage could be that some weaker lines are forced out of business by their stronger competitors, and shipping capacity may be reduced overall.