Groupe Eurotunnel: Application of European Regulations to the Channel Tunnel

PARIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

With several different sources announcing an imminent publication from the European Commission, for the attention of the United Kingdom and France, in relation to the application of European regulations on charges for passenger and freight trains in the Channel Tunnel, Groupe Eurotunnel (Paris:GET) would like to emphasise the following points of fact:

• This process is targeted at the states and not at the company,
• The Channel Tunnel is an integrated transport system (Le Shuttle), which gives passage to trains in return for an access charge,
• The initial investment, entirely privately funded, was 15 million euros. This is different to all other European railway infrastructures, which are financed by states,
• The investment was made on the basis of traffic hypotheses calculated by the states and their operators,
• Access charges are defined in the Railway Usage Contract (RUC), signed in 1987 by the national operators, BRB and SNCF. They are proportional to the cost of the adjacent public infrastructures and more advantageous,
• Eurotunnel has always sought the development of cross-Channel traffic and concentrates significant resources on this goal,
• Eurotunnel believes that the IGC has delayed the authorisation of Deutsche Bahn services, which has just been granted, by three years,
• Eurotunnel regrets that some major railway operators have had difficulties which have led them to abandon cross-Channel traffic,
• To Eurotunnel’s knowledge, only Eurostar (more than 100 million euros profit in 2012) is contesting a claimed lack of transparency in 2014 access charges, finding issue with a contract which it has applied for 19 years,
• If modifications were to be made to the Concession which were unfavourable to the interests of the thousands of small shareholders in Groupe Eurotunnel, the group would seek a legitimate indemnity from the states, based upon the period up to 2086, the term of the Concession.

Eurotunnel
For media enquiries
John Keefe, + 44 (0) 1303 284491
Consultant
[e-mail]
or
For investor enquiries
Michael Schuller, [phone]
[e-mail]

Category Code: MSC

Sequence Number: 379162

Time of Receipt (offset from UTC): 20130619T192023+0100