Common use of ARGUMENT Clause in Contracts

ARGUMENT. There is no genuine dispute as to the basic facts of the challenged conduct.16 Respondents’ rules and practices benefit ocean carriers while increasing costs to motor carriers, the shipping public, and ultimately American consumers. These practices are unnecessarily restrictive to accomplish the purported goals of the procurement of chassis and interoperable chassis pools. And ocean carriers—as common carriers—have a duty to the shipping public beyond maximizing short term profits at the expense of the rest of the supply chain. Nor can Respondents dispute the legal effect of these facts. Distribution Services is on all fours here. There, the Commission struck down an ocean carrier conference rule controlling reimbursement of “transshipment” services, which governed the transfer of cargo from an ocean container to an inland container at an off-port location. That rule incentivized minimizing the transportation of empty ocean carrier containers back to port, shifting the cost of transporting empty containers elsewhere. Distribution Services, 1988 WL 340659, at *2. Although minimizing the transportation of empty ocean containers and preventing false billing were “worthy objective[s],” the Commission found the ocean carriers’ regulations to be “excessive and thus unreasonable” because “less intrusive methods” existed to accomplish those goals. Id. at *7. The same analysis applies here.

ARGUMENT. There is no genuine dispute as to the basic facts of the challenged conduct.16 Respondents’ conduct. Respondents’ rules and practices benefit shift costs from ocean carriers while increasing costs to motor carriers, the shipping public, and ultimately American consumers. These practices are unnecessarily restrictive to accomplish the purported goals of interoperable chassis pools and the procurement of chassis and interoperable chassis poolsfor delivery of containers. And ocean carriers—as common carriers—have a duty to the shipping public beyond maximizing short term profits at the expense of the rest of the supply chain. Nor can Respondents dispute the legal effect of these facts. In Distribution Services is on all fours here. ThereServices, the Commission struck down an ocean carrier conference rule controlling reimbursement of “transshipment” services, which governed the transfer of cargo from an ocean container to an inland container at an off-port location. That This rule incentivized minimizing the transportation of empty ocean carrier containers back to port, shifting the cost of transporting empty containers elsewhere. Distribution Services, 1988 WL 340659, at *2. Although minimizing the transportation of empty ocean containers and preventing false billing for transloading expenses were “worthy objective[s],” the Commission found the ocean carriers’ regulations to be “excessive and thus unreasonable” because unreasonable”—because “less intrusive methods” existed to accomplish those goals. Id. at *7. The same analysis holding applies here.