EU Commission investigates selling of Italian SOE Tirrenia

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EU Commission investigates selling of Italian SOE Tirrenia

Tuesday, 10 April 2012 13:08

Compagnia Italiana di Navigazione (CIN) is facing an in-depth European Union investigation regarding its plan to buy Tirrenia di Navigazione, the insolvent Italian ferry state-owned enterprise.

Tirrenia operates a fleet of 23 vessels, with 1500 employees, on internal Italian routes and to Albania.

The commission is concerned, that the parties involved in the merger have very high, if not monopolistic, market shares on diverse maritime routes in Italy, in particular to and from Sardinia.

CIN is a company created chiefly to acquire Tirrenia by Marinvest, Grimaldi Compagnia di Navigazione and Onorato Partecipazioni. These are all Italian companies active in the passenger and freight shipping sector and are main Tirrenia competitors.

The EU Commission has set a deadline of June 4 to rule on whether the proposed merger would reduce effective competition in the European market. Commissioner Almunia has also proposed CIM repay up to €400M of public aid received by Tirrenia in the past.

Italy's government is working on an alternative plan to total privatization of Tirrenia to CIN, as they believe selling individual routes to different companies would not save all of Tirrenia’s 1500 jobs.

Matteo Bianchi