§ 1313.15 - Contract discovery.

(a) Petition. A petition to discover contract provisions must show that petitioner is a shipper or port, has standing to file a complaint under 49 U.S.C. 10713(d)(2) (A) or (B), and that petitioner is affected by the contract. The following information will be considered in making a determination on whether to permit discovery.

(1) Standing. Identify the provision(s) in 49 U.S.C. 10713(d) under which petitioner has standing to file a complaint.

(2) Affected party. An affected party is one that is an actual or potential participant in the relevant market. The following information is relevant to making that determination and should be provided.

(i) Nature and volume of petitioner's relevant business.

(ii) Relevant commodities petitioner ships or receives;

(iii) Comparisons between petitioner's commodities, locations of shipping facmlities and serving carriers, actual or potential traffic patterns and serving carrier(s), with the traffic patterns and serving carrier(s) identified in the contract summary. State whether petitioner is a consignor or consignee.

(iv) Showing of an ability to ship the commodity in question at a time generally simultaneous with the contract at issue.

(v) Any additional information petitioner considers appropriate to support its request, including prior negotiations, if any.

(vi) Demonstrate how and to what degree the petitioner's relevant business may be affected by the contract terms as disclosed in the summary.

(vii) Proof of actual injury is not required to satisfy this rule.

(3) Demonstrated need. (i) With regard to the grounds for complaint under 49 U.S.C. 10713(d)(2)(B), the demonstrated need test applies to contracts for forest products and paper, non-agricultural port traffic, and other commodities. The test does not apply to agricultural commodity contracts.

(ii) A petitioner seeking disclosure of non-agricultural contract information must show that the contract terms it seeks are relevant to its potential challenge to the contract.

(iii) As car data is published in the contract summary, a petition for further disclosure on the basis that the contract may impair the contracting carrier's common obligation must establish a nexus between the information sought and the common carrier obligation. Before information regarding special features will be disclosed, a petitioner must show how the special feature or certain forms of that special feature could impair the contracting carrier's common carrier obligation and how that impairment may affect the petitioner. On receiving such a petition, the carrier must furnish to the petitioner and the Commission the data required by § 1313.10(b)(6)(i)(D).