SeaFrance’s main staff union, the CFDT, is to submit its own takeover bid for the ailing cross-Channel operator which has been in administration since June 2010, ifw-net reports.
The deadline for bids expired on 26 July, but the judicial administrators have agreed to allow the union time to formulate its offer.
As a result, SeaFrance was obliged to adjourn last week’s meeting of the company’s works council at which the joint takeover bid filed by LDA and DFDS was to have been presented. A new date for the meeting has yet to be arranged.
The CFDT’s bid focuses on the creation of a Société Co-opérative Ouvrière de Production (SCOP) – a co-operative of SeaFrance workers who would own and manage the company.
More information on the bid is expected to be disclosed next month, and the union says it is aiming to present “a coherent and alternative takeover project” to the Paris commercial tribunal at the end of October when SeaFrance’s period in administration ends.
The CFDT is being advised by its lawyer, Philippe Brun, and consulting firm Diagoris.
The timing of the bid has raised suspicions that the union was bent on delaying the examination of the LDA-DFDS bid which it believes will lead to the break-up of SeaFrance.
But the CFDT has insisted work on its bid began earlier this year, but progress had been checked by SeaFrance’s refusal to provide some company documents that a court has now ordered it to make available.
The union also claims that SeaFrance plans to implement additional restructuring measures which entail axing one of its four vessels, and with it a further 200 staff cuts, to make the company a more attractive proposition to LDA and DFDS.
But SeaFrance said reducing its fleet to three vessels remained at the project stage.
The deadline for bids expired on 26 July, but the judicial administrators have agreed to allow the union time to formulate its offer.
As a result, SeaFrance was obliged to adjourn last week’s meeting of the company’s works council at which the joint takeover bid filed by LDA and DFDS was to have been presented. A new date for the meeting has yet to be arranged.
The CFDT’s bid focuses on the creation of a Société Co-opérative Ouvrière de Production (SCOP) – a co-operative of SeaFrance workers who would own and manage the company.
More information on the bid is expected to be disclosed next month, and the union says it is aiming to present “a coherent and alternative takeover project” to the Paris commercial tribunal at the end of October when SeaFrance’s period in administration ends.
The CFDT is being advised by its lawyer, Philippe Brun, and consulting firm Diagoris.
The timing of the bid has raised suspicions that the union was bent on delaying the examination of the LDA-DFDS bid which it believes will lead to the break-up of SeaFrance.
But the CFDT has insisted work on its bid began earlier this year, but progress had been checked by SeaFrance’s refusal to provide some company documents that a court has now ordered it to make available.
The union also claims that SeaFrance plans to implement additional restructuring measures which entail axing one of its four vessels, and with it a further 200 staff cuts, to make the company a more attractive proposition to LDA and DFDS.
But SeaFrance said reducing its fleet to three vessels remained at the project stage.