Guernsey and Condor run a ‘cartel’, says Jersey delegate

A minister in Jersey revealed yesterday that the company had asked for tens of millions of pounds over the past 12 months to stay afloat, and millions more to continue operating until next spring.

Another senior Jersey politician used parliamentary privilege to claim that Guernsey and Condor were running a ‘cartel’ and that the company’s true financial health was being hidden from the public.

Condor declined to comment on what was said at the Jersey states meeting.

But Guernsey chief executive Neil Inder insisted ‘good progress’ is being made in talks with parent company Brittany Ferries about operating freight and passenger services in Guernsey from April, following the recent failure of the joint process to create a single operator to appoint. on both islands.

It was also announced yesterday that Brittany Ferries had rejected Jersey’s request to continue services to the island on a temporary basis next summer.

Jersey’s Economic Development Minister Kirsten Morel has now launched a new tender process for a Jersey-only service and said he plans to announce a preferred bidder within the next month.

He said it was “such a shame” that he was denied the opportunity to fully investigate the financial viability of one of the original bidders, believed to be Condor, after Guernsey reportedly jumped the gun on October 30 and named Brittany Ferries as the preferred bidder had announced. .

That claim surprised Deputy Inder, who late yesterday issued a statement criticizing “an inaccurate narrative alleged about the process,” and dropped the strongest indication yet that the Condor/Brittany bid scored highest on the basis of objective criteria in the original tender process.

“Our selected operator, Brittany Ferries, was selected based on the joint tender we conducted with Jersey in accordance with the published tender documents,” Deputy Inder said.

‘There seems to be an inaccurate narrative about the trial. We did not stop the process, we followed it all the way and a preferred bidder had to be selected. We have provided the certainty that our island deserves, and we only did so after giving Jersey two weeks’ notice of our intention, after both islands had closed the scoring.”

At the Jersey State Assembly, Deputy Morel said that when asked, he could not provide a clear explanation as to why he had not appointed DFDS as the preferred bidder. He only said that he had to “treat both parties equally.”