On 9th January came the news that Groupe Eurotunnel, which runs the Channel Tunnel (Eurotunnel) service and bought the assets of Seafrance, is putting its Dover-Calais ferry service up for sale after a ban on it operating the route was upheld by Britain’s Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT).

The CAT’s ruling supported a ban brought in by Britain’s antitrust regulator and comes after a long-running probe by the UK’s competition authorities into Eurotunnel’s move into the ferry market. Under the ruling Eurotunnel now has six months to cease its MyFerryLink operations with the company saying it would seek a buyer for the business, which it always claimed was run as an independent company since its inception in August 2012.

Groupe Eurotunnel subcontracted the operation of the ferries Rodin, Berlioz and Nord- Pas-de-Calais to an independent company, the SCOP SeaFrance, from when operations began on 20th August 2012 and, in 2014, MyFerryLink, achieved its objectives with close to 400,000 trucks and 350,000 cars transported while Eurotunnel transported nearly 1.4m lorries, nearly 2.5m cars and 10.1 million passengers in 2013. (the most recent annual figures).

The Competition Appeal Tribunal recognised the validity of the case put forward by the Group and, independently, by the SCOP, but decided that these were not sufficient to overturn again the decision taken by the Competition and Markets Authority, published on 18th September.

It now remains to be seen whether or not the MyFerryLink operation will be sold as a going concern or if an operator such as DFDS Seaways will make a bid for the Berlioz and Rodin, or perhaps all three ships. No doubt the answer to that will be known by June 2015.