The Competition Commission today provisionally confirmed that it has jurisdiction over Eurotunnel’s acquisition of three former SeaFrance ferries.
Eurotunnel, which operates the Dover-Calais ferries under the MyFerryLink brand, issued a legal challenge last year to the competition authority’s ruling against the merger.
The Competition Appeal Tribunal issued a judgment in December, calling on the Competition Commission to look again at whether the acquisition involved a merger.
The commission has been considering whether Eurotunnel, together with a workers’ cooperative formed by former SeaFrance employees, acquired an ‘enterprise’, giving rise to a merger under the UK merger control rules.
The commission today concluded that the acquired assets did constitute an ‘enterprise’.
Deputy chairman Alasdair Smith said: “It is our provisional view that Eurotunnel in effect acquired a business that was already geared up to run a ferry service between Dover and Calais, using assets that had been proven in practice to be suitable for that activity.
“It would have faced a much longer, more expensive and riskier process to get the service up and running if it had tried to buy alternative assets in the market.
“We found that the commercial operability of the assets had not been greatly affected by SeaFrance’s liquidation.”