COMAIR, which was given a deadline of Wednesday to reduce its foreign
ownership, said on Tuesday its lawyers would argue that the regulator
could not carry out its threat to suspend its licence due to
technicalities.
The operator of kulula.com and British Airways’
South African domestic flights said it had taken the precaution of
launching an urgent application to interdict the Air Services Licensing
Council (ASLC) from suspending its domestic licence Wednesday, pending
the outcome of a review by a court of law.
Comair is 11.5% owned
by British Airways via Brit Air, according to its 2015 annual report.
Its largest shareholder is Bidvest, which owns 27% via BB Investments,
followed by Allan Gray, which owns 12.9%.
Two years ago, FlySafair
lodged a complaint with the licensing council, claiming Comair’s
foreign ownership was higher than allowed by South African law.
Comair
said it made a detailed submission to the council arguing this was not
true, but before the council made a decision, the terms of its members
expired.
It then restarted this process with the council’s new
members. Although FlySafair dropped its complaint last year, the new
members of the licensing council continued with the case.
Comair
said in Tuesday’s statement its "view and that of its external legal
advisers is that the ASLC has not commenced suspension proceedings in
accordance with the act".
"The company stresses that the
disagreement with the ASLC does not relate to the safety of the
company’s operations. The disagreement with the ASLC relates exclusively
to a shareholder regulatory issue," Tuesday’s statement said.
No comments:
Post a Comment