From her office, the EU Commissioner for Competition, Margrethe Vestager, has a direct view to one of the most staunch members of the opposition to the major container alliances, namely the European Shippers' Council.

At her soon-to-be one year old office at the EU Commission's iconic Berlaymont building in central Brussels, she can just glimpse her neighbor, who has not missed an opportunity to warn against the increasing and ongoing concentration among the world's largest container carriers, today gathered in four cooperative alliances. The most recent one - the world's largest alliance, 2M, between Maersk Line and MSC - was launched just a few months after Margrethe Vestager started work as the EU Commission's new competition sheriff, on January 1 this year.