Liner Conference Officers

Managers of the liner shipping conferences that set common freight rates and pooled sailings on scheduled trade routes from the late nineteenth century until the system was dismantled. The UN Liner Code (the Convention on a Code of Conduct for Liner Conferences, 1974, in force 1983) gave national lines cargo-sharing rights on a 40-40-20 basis. The European Union repealed the block exemption for liner conferences in October 2008, ending price-fixing immunity in EU trades; conference officers as a distinct profession largely disappeared with it.