“Riddled with factual errors” - fuel firm escalates row with regulator

Friday 01 April 2016

The Airport fuel farm operators criticised by competition regulators for unfair practices have hit back again, saying CICRA’s report is founded on inaccuracies and questioning why they have been so quick to criticise them, but so slow to act on complaints against their competitors.

ATF Fuels say that their decision not to supply fuel to Aviation Beauport for resale is not down to wanting to strangle competition, but because Aviation Beauport does not have a licence to sell aircraft fuel – they say that without that licence, supplying fuel to them would put them in breach of their own operating agreement and would invalidate their insurance.

The story kicked off on Thursday with a statement from CICRA that ATF Fuels had been breaking the competition law by refusing to supply fuel to Aviation Beauport for resale to operators.

Ironically, ATF had been pushing for more open competition over the La Collette Fuel Farm lease, before the lease was renewed with rival operators Rubis. ATF, which is believed to be owned by 1(1)k billionaire hedge fund manager Peter de Putron, responded to the story denying that they were being uncompetitive, and pointing out that since coming to the market in 2014, they had reduced heating oil costs by 20%.

The escalating row between the company and the regulator has the potential to turn into a major story – CICRA say that they will consider court action or fines if ATF don’t change their policies, and ATF have shown no indication that they will back down, and say they are now investigating CICRA and considering legal action.

In a statement, ATF Head of Operations Jonathan Best said: “That the accusations levelled at ATF Fuels in CICRA’s release yesterday are based on basic inaccuracies is deeply concerning, and this is made worse by the fact that these inaccuracies were not addressed months ago despite repeated communications from ourselves. This severely undermines our confidence in the regulator’s fitness for purpose.

“On top of this, we cannot help but raise a question mark over the timing and manner in which this statement was released, given the far slower and more concerted response CICRA made in response to our, and many others’, concerns about Rubis’ actions at the Fuel Farm.

“Given the nature of everything we’ve outlined, we find it deeply ironic that it is us accused of breaching competition law.”