Judge deliberates ferry tender legal challenge

A Jersey judge has said he will release a statement next week on whether or not a judicial review will be held into how the government handled the tender process for the island's ferry service.

Danish operator DFDS was awarded a 20 year contract to operate Jersey's ferry service earlier this week.

Brittany Ferries was the other bidder in the process and has challenged how the decision was made following a shortened, second ferry tender process.

Judge William Bailhache said an announcement would be made next week on the outcome of the judicial review.

The hearing of the application to bring a judicial review into the way the tender process was handled got underway on Friday.

The government of Jersey and DFDS argued Brittany Ferries, the parent company of Condor, which previously served the island, should have started its legal challenge earlier.

In court, advocate Williams for DFDS said: "In summing matters up, it [Brittany Ferries] ought to have brought the wider challenge there and then.

"This was a very urgent case and that urgency stemmed from a commercial decision taken by the applicant."

Advocate McNulty for Brittany Ferries said the firm "was under pressure from the government to participate in the second process."

The government previously said it respected the court process but that it would be "robustly defending our decision".

The call for a judicial review began when Brittany Ferries expressed concern at how the first tender process ended and how the second and shorter process was conducted.

The firm's lawyer argued that it had not been told why it was unsuccessful.

Brittany Ferries is the parent company of Condor, which had previously served the island.

The government's lawyer said there was concern over Condor's financial status and told the court the company was £140m in debt.

He added Condor was on the brink of insolvency and vessels could have been seized which would have left Jersey with no lifeline sea links.

Meanwhile DFDS told the court it was not up to Brittany Ferries to take a "wait and see" approach about what happened in the second process before making a legal challenge.

But Brittany Ferries' lawyer pushed back saying the company was under government pressure and did not waive its rights to challenge the eventual outcome.

The Minister for Economic Development, Deputy Kirsten Morel, - the man responsible for choosing between the two operators - was not in court.

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