Maersk and IBM announced on November 29, 2022 that they would withdraw TradeLens, their blockchain-enabled shipping platform, with the intention of taking it offline by the end of the first quarter of 2023. For shippers and freight forwarders using it to follow cargo and exchange documents across carriers, the decision turns access to those records into a transition-planning question. It is an announced withdrawal, not an immediate shutdown. [S1][S2]

IBM's June 2021 description of TradeLens offered shippers and freight forwarders a single place to follow cargo across carriers and handle documents. Participants could connect supply-chain partners, but data and documents were shared only with permitted parties. For a team planning its exit, keeping its own files and keeping information flowing between partners are separate tasks. It would need to establish how both would continue. [S2][S1]

The platform had attracted substantial carrier participation before the closure decision. In June 2021, IBM reported that Hapag-Lloyd and Ocean Network Express had completed their integration after pilot projects. The same release counted more than 300 organizations, ten ocean carriers and data from more than 600 ports and terminals in the TradeLens ecosystem. Those were IBM's figures at that earlier date, not a November 2022 customer count. They describe participation and the reach of the data, not how many organizations paid for the service. [S2]

In the withdrawal notice, Maersk's head of business platforms, Rotem Hershko, said the companies had developed a viable platform but had not achieved the global industry collaboration they needed. TradeLens had therefore failed to reach the commercial viability required to continue and meet financial expectations as an independent business, he said. That explanation does not erase the earlier integrations. For a buyer choosing a shared logistics service, the carrier list answers who has connected; it cannot establish whether the business behind the service is sustainable. [S1][S2]

Maersk said the parties would look after customers without disrupting their businesses during the withdrawal. Its November notice names no replacement service and provides neither a record-export procedure nor a customer-specific timetable. An operations team would still need to settle which records must remain accessible and how its partners will exchange information after TradeLens closes. The assurance leaves the work of that handover unspecified. [S1][S2]

Source documents

  1. A.P. Moller - Maersk and IBM to discontinue TradeLens, a blockchain-enabled global trade platformhttps://www.maersk.com/news/articles/2022/11/29/maersk-and-ibm-to-discontinue-tradelens
  2. Hapag-Lloyd and Ocean Network Express Complete TradeLens Integration, Join Rapidly Expanding Shipping Ecosystem to Further Enhance Trade Digitizationhttps://newsroom.ibm.com/2021-06-24-Hapag-Lloyd-and-Ocean-Network-Express-Complete-TradeLens-Integration,-Join-Rapidly-Expanding-Shipping-Ecosystem-to-Further-Enhance-Trade-Digitization