News

Long standing Eurotunnel founding shareholders will be able to continue crossing the Channel for £2, after the company appears to have caved in to the shareholder's demands.

Their travel concessions, potentially worth thousands of pounds a year were to have been lost at the time Eurotunnel restructuring took place earlier in the year.

The company said it would not honour free-travel promises made to investors at the 1987 flotation.

Investors who had bought at least 1,500 shares were told they would be allowed to travel through the tunnel on its car carrying shuttle trains for just £2 return a time - unlimited and for the rest of their lives.

Eurotunnel Action Group who were fighting for the concession to stay won an interim agreement safeguarding the rights of its members until November after the debt reconstruction.

It has now emerged that Eurotunnel chief Jacques Gounon has extended that until November 2008, with the implication that shareholders' rights will stay for the life of the Eurotunnel concession, which runs until 2086.