FMC TO INVESTIGATE MAERSK, DCL FOR SHIPPING-ACT VIOLATIONS

   The Federal Maritime Commission has opened investigations into alleged
shipping-act violations committed by Maersk Line and Direct Container Line,
a Carson, Calif.-based non-vessel-operating common carrier.
   The FMC said it has evidence that Maersk paid illegal rebates and made
other freight concessions to several customers, including NVOs, covering
"hundreds of shipments" between the Pacific and South America from 1996 to 1998.
   The commission alleges that Maersk collaborated with its customers over
commodity and measurement misdescriptions so the shippers could benefit
from "very substantial freight savings to which they were not entitled,"
the FMC said.
   The FMC is also investigating charges that Direct Container Line
received rebates, freight-rate concessions and less-than-applicable tariff
and service contract rates from one or more ocean carriers for cargo moving
from the U.S. to Chile, Peru and destinations on the East Coast of South
America after October 1994.
   The FMC said it will issue final decisions in both cases by August 18, 2000.