AN injunction preventing the Irish Road Haulage Association and named persons from blockading ports and highways was granted in the High Court yesterday to the Competition Authority.
The order, granted by the President of the High Court, Mr Justice Costello, will remain until Monday when the hauliers will have the opportunity to appear before the court.
Lawyers for Pandoro (Ireland) Ltd and the Dublin Port and Docks Board were also in court. They stated that they would reserve their position until the outcome of the Competition Authority application.
The injunction granted to the Competition Authority prevents the Irish Road Haulage Association Ltd (IRHA), Dowling Freight Services Ltd, Mr Liam Flanagan, Mr Joseph Barrett and Mr John Nestor, from seeking to secure an agreement on rates by blockading the ports or the areas around the ports, the blocking of highways, the interference with the lawful business of others including most particularly the lawful business of shipping companies, shipping agents, distributors, stevedores and their agents, servants and contractors.
Mr Paul Gallagher SC, for the authority, said it was an urgent matter and the ports were being blockaded in an attempt to implement a collective agreement on a schedule of "minimum haulage rates" to be put to ship owners.
He said the hauliers were in breach of the Competition Act, 1991, and the authority was entitled to take proceedings where there was public interest.
Mr Justice Costello, in granting the injunction, said an application for this type of interim relief was only granted in exceptional circumstances. It seemed to him the authority had made a case and it was in the public interest that he should grant the order.
In an affidavit, Mr Patrick Massey, director of Competition Enforcement, Competition Authority, Irish Life Centre Talbot Street, Dublin, said the IRHA was a company which stated it represented its members, Irish road hauliers, who subscribed to the association as a lobbying or representative body.
He said Pandoro had informed him that the current action would cost it £500,000 per week and if it continued beyond yesterday it would have to reroute ships and the cost would double.
Coastal Line had informed him that if the action continued it would have to lay off half of its staff on Monday morning and to continue to wind down activities.
The Irish road haulage business is composed of approximately 2,000 firms of individuals providing haulage services. In May 1997 the authority received complaints regarding the IRHA which centred on a letter from the IRHA to individual shipping companies.
In the letter there was evidence that there was a collective agreement on a schedule of "minimum haulage rates" which would be put to the ship owners for acceptance and which would apply from July 1st, 1997. Both the IRHA and the individual hauliers involved in the business throughout the State had clearly come to an agreement which would fix prices.
On May 22nd last he obtained a District Court warrant to search the IRHA premises at Lower Leeson Street, Dublin.
There appeared to be 10 branches of the IRHA. Dr Christopher McCormack, who described himself as IRHA director general, appeared to have been involved in the activities of the company and particularly the activities of which the complaint was now made.
There was a meeting of the licensed hauliers on May 11th in Dublin. From handwritten notes of the meeting, Dr Massey said, he believed there was an agreed schedule of rates.
After his visit to the IRHA premises, the authority was contacted by solicitors representing individual shipping companies. One was from solicitors for Pandoro (Ireland) Ltd and another from Conway Shipping Ltd.
As a result of another agreement or concerted practice between the hauliers, there had been a blockade of parts of Dublin Port.
He believed hauliers were letting it be known they would be involved in spreading this disruption. While the original declared purpose of this blockade was to deal with delays in payment, he believed it had as a significant, if not primary, motive the securing of the consent of the ship owners to the rates published by the IRHA.
"I am particularly concerned that unless restrained by the court the hauliers will succeed in their desired effect of pressurising the ship owners into accepting an anti competitive schedule of rates," he said.