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Sea Containers on Hoverspeed’s legal action: “We are suing Customs & Excise for £50 million to make up for the lost revenue in ticket sales, retail sales and the damage of goodwill of the Hoverspeed business” |
UK. British ferry operator Hoverspeed, which operates the Newhaven-Dieppe and Dover-Calais routes, has won a civil action against UK Customs & Excise, alleging that the department’s heavy-handedness in searching its passengers was harming business.
The court ruled that the Customs & Excise random searches were illegal. Hoverspeed has lodged a £50 million (US$90 million) case against Customs & Excise in the High Court, which will be heard on 25 November 2004.
Steve Lawrence, Director of Corporate Communications of Hoverspeed’s parent company Sea Containers, told The Moodie Report: “We are suing Customs & Excise for £50 million to make up for the lost revenue in ticket sales, retail sales and the damage of goodwill of the Hoverspeed business.”
Sea Containers felt that Hoverspeed had been deliberately targeted because of the popularity of its cross-Channel services. Hoverspeed runs up to 15 services to the Continent using a fleet of high-speed catamarans and monohull Superseacats. It also runs the shops onboard the ferries.
Lawrence said the current lawsuit followed a successful court action in July 2002 when the British High Court ruled such “˜random searches’ unlawful, moving the burden of proof from the passenger to Customs officials.
He commented: “They said it was their fight against cross-Channel smuggling and they wanted operators to cooperate with them. We always cooperate with them but they have been overzealous in their treatment of our passengers. We are talking about the rights of EU citizens to buy and bring back tobacco and alcohol bought in the EU for own consumption.”
The development followed the announcement from the European Commission in Brussels on 7 October 2004 that the UK Customs officers’ heavy-handed approach in deciding whether goods brought in were for personal use was unfair to travellers.
Penalties ranged from confiscation of goods to the seizure of travellers’ vehicles. Having failed to come to any agreement yesterday, the European Commission gave the British government until 8 October to ease the penalties, or be taken to court.
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