Ferry News Archive
Grimaldi takes Tirrenia battle to Brussels
Date: 19 Jul 2006 00:00 Source: Lloyds ListGenoese shipowner Aldo Grimaldi is to report Italian state-owned shipowner Tirrenia to the European Commission within the next two weeks, accusing it of violating regulations on state aid.
In addition, he will petition Italy’s competition authorities to rule against the state shipping company on the issue of tariffs, charging that Tirrenia has used its subsidies illegally to finance a price war against Mr Grimaldi’s Grandi Navi Veloci.
He insists that he does not object to Tirrenia’s subsidies, which he puts at €170m ($199m) for this year alone, but to their allegedly illegal use to suppress competition in some trades, notably the substantially over-tonnaged Genoa-Porto Torres route, where his large and expensively built vessels compete directly with Tirrenia’s.
His decision to move ahead on both fronts follows an initial unsuccessful approach to the former Berlusconi government earlier this year. It appears to have been spurred both by Mr Grimaldi’s frustration at the failure of the new Prodi government to respond and the continuation of a destructive price war on the route that is having a significant effect on GNV’s financial performance.
A Tirrenia spokeswoman declined to comment on Mr Grimaldi’s accusations. Tirrenia officials have argued in the past, however, that it is the government that establishes routes, prices and service frequency for the company and that this rigidity, allied to its public service role providing services to Italy’s many islands, makes it difficult for Tirrenia to compete against more nimble private operators.
Mr Grimaldi’s latest assault on the state-owned company continues a long-running war between the two. It also comes at a time when Italy’s private shipowners as a group are pushing the new government hard for an early decision on Tirrenia’s fate once subsidies expire, in 2008 at the latest.
As far as the European authorities are concerned, Mr Grimaldi charges that Tirrenia is in violation of a 2001 EC decision ordering it to “stabilise its services in general, and its service on the Genoa-Porto Torres route in particular, at 1994 levels”.
Rather, Mr Grimaldi argues, Tirrenia has improved its service through the deployment of larger, faster ships.
He alleges that Tirrenia had also breached EC stipulations not to build new ships or overhaul existing ones, therefore making additional unauthorised investments.
He adds that the state company used the new fast super-ferries Bithnia and Janas on the Genoa-Porto Torres route, also in violation of EC orders.
Alberto Rossi, a partner in the Genoa firm Conte & Giacomini and a lawyer for Mr Grimaldi, said he did not expect a decision from the EC transport directorate before the end of the year. The hope was, however, than an EC investigation now in progress would focus minds on the issue in the Italian transport ministry.
In terms of Italy’s competition authorities, Mr Grimaldi will argue that Tirrenia has not asked for tariff increases since 2004 and has applied only negligible bunker surcharges, if any, this despite mounting inflation and soaring bunker costs.
Instead, he charges, the company relies on mounting credit exposure and government subsidies. He also alleges that Tirrenia operates without an agreed tariff schedule for goods, allowing it to undercut GNV at will.
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