Aer Lingus breached competition law, says Ryanair

RYANAIR has claimed Aer Lingus breached Irish competition law and stock exchange rules by briefing the Government eight weeks before its other shareholders on its decision to axe its flights between Shannon and Heathrow.

Ryanair, which is Aer Lingus’s largest shareholder, yesterday said it had submitted a formal complaint to the Irish Financial Regulatory Services Authority (FSA) about Aer Lingus’s decision to give “selective briefings” to the Department of Transport on June 13, July 31 and August 3.

The airline said the last of those briefings came a full four days before the stock exchange announcement of the route closure on August 7.

Ryanair said the “repeated and selective dissemination of market sensitive information” to one shareholder up to eight weeks prior to making all other shareholders aware of the facts was a clear violation of stock exchange rules and Irish company law and it said it wanted the FSA to investigate the irregularities.

Ryanair head of regulatory affairs Jim Callaghan said: “Aer Lingus’s chief executive in an interview on RTÉ radio on August 12 claimed that all Aer Lingus shareholders were advised at the same time of this market- sensitive information. This week’s revelations prove that these claims were untrue.

“It is unlawful for any publicly owned company to engage in selective disclosure of market-sensitive information to one shareholder, regardless of how large that shareholder may be.”

Ryanair has a 29.4% stake in its rival, while the Department of Transport owns only 25.3%.

Mr Callaghan suggested that since the Department of Transport has no regulatory role either in the case of Irish airlines or in route opening and closure decisions, Aer Lingus could only have been briefing the Department of Transport in its capacity as a 25% shareholder of Aer Lingus.

“This appears to be a clear and flagrant breach of stock exchange rules by both the chairman and chief executive of Aer Lingus and we have asked the FSA to investigate this matter and take appropriate action.

“It is long past time that the Department of Transport stopped behaving as the downtown office of Aer Lingus and that Aer Lingus stops treating the Department of Transport as its downtown head office,” he said.

Aer Lingus acknowledged the complaint and said it was examining it.

One aviation source last night pointed out that there had been no financial gain for the department in having the information — that even though it was briefed ahead of the others it did not use that to pervert the market. The source also pointed out that the share price at Aer Lingus had not been affected when the information was made available.