NORTH ATLANTIC AGREEMENT PUT ON HOLD

   Carriers have withdrawn their requests for U.S. and European regulators
to approve the North Atlantic Agreement, a grouping of 19 transatlantic
ship lines.
   The NAA carriers say they’ll withdraw their applications to the Federal
Maritime Commission and European Commission until European competition
authorities complete their review of a new Trans-Atlantic Conference
Agreement.
   The NAA was supposed to have replaced TACA, and would have had a larger
membership. Carriers said the NAA would have provided more flexibility to
discuss issues such as capacity. Shippers worry that capacity restrictions
will raise rates.
   Christopher Rankin, the former P&O Nedlloyd executive who has been point man for the NAA, said that in view of legal uncertainty in Europe over
agreements such as the NAA, withdrawing the applications "seems to be the
best course for the present."
   He said, however, that in the process of designing the NAA, carriers
"have better defined the function of a conference in a more deregulated
environment."