This article is from page 22 of the 2007-09-11 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 22 JPG
RYANAIR confirmed last night that it has submitted its appeal to the Eu- ropean Court of First Instance (CFI) in Luxembourg against what the air- line describes as “the EU Commis- sion’s unlawful and politically moti- vated decision to prohibit its merger with Aer Lingus.”
The low-fares airline had made an offer of €2.80 per share to acquire Aer Lingus following the former national airline’s floatation last Oc- tober.
Ryanair was required to seek ap- proval for clearance of the deal from the European Commission. The Commission blocked the merger.
“As a result, Aer Lingus sharehold- ers have suffered a 58 per cent col- lapse in their interim profits and a
share price fall to €2.50”, a Ryanair statement issued last night said.
Speaking last night, Ryanair’s Head of Regulatory Affairs, Jim Callaghan, said: “We have filed our appeal with the CFI today asking them to overturn the Commission’s unlawful and politically motivated decision to block Ryanair’s merger with Aer Lingus.
“This merger, which accounts for less than 5 per cent of the EU air transport market was clearly pro- competition and would have been the first merger in history to guarantee fare reductions, which would have saved European consumers more than €100m per annum. The Com- mission made several manifest errors in its assessment of the merger and ignored evidence from Ryanair dem- onstrating the numerous benefits that
the merger would bring to consum- ers and increased competition with the high fares Mega Carriers. At the same time, the Commission ac- cepted, without question, misleading and factually inaccurate submissions from the Irish Government and Aer Lingus, both of whom were clearly trying to block the merger.”
He said that the airline “also of- fered unprecedented commitments to the Commission to address any possible competition concerns, in- cluding giving up more than half of Aer Lingus’ Dublin-Heathrow Slots, as well as over 1,700 additional weekly slots — several times what has been offered in any previous airline merger.”