For a few years it provided strong competition for the more established British, Dutch, and French East India Companies, notably in the lucrative tea trade with China.

The success of the British, Dutch, and French East India Companies led the merchants and shipowners of Ostend in the Austrian Netherlands to want to establish direct commercial relations with the Indies.

[5] Some private merchants from Antwerp, Ghent and Ostend were granted charters for the East India trade by the Habsburg government of the Austrian Netherlands, which had recently gained control of the territory from Spain.

The mutual rivalry among the syndicates weighed heavily upon the profits and this resulted in the foundation of the Ostend Company, chartered by the Austrian ruler Charles VI, in December 1722.

However, in May 1727, the Emperor, under diplomatic pressure from the British and Dutch, suspended its charter for seven years and, in March 1731, the Second Treaty of Vienna ordered its final abolition.

[3] The flourishing Ostend Company had been sacrificed by Charles VI in order to secure the recognition of his daughter, Maria Theresa, and thus his dynastic succession under the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713.

[3] Between 1728 and 1731 a small number of illegal expeditions were organized under borrowed flags, but the very last ships sailing for the company were the two "permission-vessels" that left in 1732 and were a concession made in the Treaty of Vienna.