Eurotunnel has admitted defeat in its battle to keep its cross-channel ferry business and has put MyFerryLink up for sale after failing to overturn a competition ruling for the second time.
The Competition Appeal Tribunal upheld a decision that MyFerryLink should stop operating out of Dover within six months. Combined with tunnel traffic, Groupe Eurotunnel had just under half of all cross-channel custom.
Eurotunnel has decided not to pursue the case further after the failure of its second appeal. The company is confident of finding a buyer for the ferry operation it started in 2012 after buying up ships from SeaFrance, after the French firm went into liquidation.
The group said it subcontracted the three-ferries operation to an independent company, the SCOP SeaFrance, but the newly formed Competition and Markets Authority had warned that a combined Eurotunnel and MyFerryLink would take a dominant share of the cross-Channel market.
Jacques Gounon, chairman and chief executive of Groupe Eurotunnel, said: “MyFerryLink is an operating and commercial success. We are proud to have succeeded where so many others have failed. Given the position of the British authorities, the future of MyFerryLink will now be determined outside the group.”
Last year MyFerryLink took almost 400,000 lorries and 350,000 cars across the Channel, while Eurotunnel transported nearly 1.4m lorries, nearly 2.5m cars and 10.1 million passengers in 2013 – its most recent annual figures.
