EFTA Document EFTA01776045

From: David Stern <c . Sent: Tuesday, July 19, 2011 3:40 PM To: Jeffrey Epstein Subject: Stansted Wall Street Journal, July 19 2011 LONDON—The U.K.'s Competition Commission on Tuesday stood by its =riginal decision to break up BAA Ltd. and demanded the airports =perator start the process of selling London's Stansted Airport within =hree months, followed by the sale of either airport at Edinburgh or =lasgow. "We hope that the sales can now proceed without delay so that passengers =nd airlines can start to enjoy the benefits of greater competition," =aid chairman of the BAA remedies implementation group Peter Freeman. The commission said Stansted should be sold first as it serves the =arger number of passengers, and that there would be a small overlap =etween the two sales periods. Mr. Freeman said there now were "no grounds for delaying further" the =ales. BAA Chief Executive Colin Matthews said he was dismayed by the decision, =hich he called "draconian." "The Competition Commission has not recognized that the world and BAA =ave changed," Mr. Matthew said. BAA now will consider a judicial review of the decision, but Mr. =atthews added it was too early to define on what grounds an appeal =ould be based. "I have to do the best I can do defend the company and =ts shareholders," he said. The decision, he added, was unreasonable given BAA was acquired by =pain's Ferrovial SA during more prosperous times in 2006 and had since =nvested billions in improving the infrastructure. Now, he said, it was =orced to sell to deadlines, which would result in lower prices because =f the continued downturn and reduced asset base. The Competition Commission, after a two-year probe, in 2009 ruled that =AA would need to sell three of its airports— Gatwick, Stansted and =ither Edinburgh or Glasgow—because its ownership was deemed to stifle =ompetition. At the time, it gave BAA two years to complete the sales. BAA put Gatwick airport up for sale and sold it in late 2009 to Global =nfrastructure Partners for E1.5 billion ($2.41 billion), which the =ompetition Commission said already had brought benefits. The issue over whether the airport operator must sell has bounced around =he courts since the original decision, with BAA lodging numerous =ppeals. BAA's original appeal was based primarily on its claim that the report =ay have been prejudiced by panel member Peter Moizer, who was linked to = failed bid. However the Court of Appeal ruled his involvement was "too =emote" for any real concern. Ferrovial declined to comment=?xml version=.0" encoding=TF•8"?> <!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "- //Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/Propertylist•1.0.dtd"> <plist version=.0"> <dict> <key>date-last-viewed</key> <integer>0</integer> EFTA_R1_00090461 EFTA01776045 <key>date-received</key> <integer>1311089987</integer> <key>flags</key> <integer>8590195713</integer> <key>gmail-label-ids</key> <array> <integer>22</integer> <integer>2</integer> </array> <key>remote-id</key> <string>168873</string> </dict> </plist> 2 EFTA_R1_00090462 EFTA01776046