A minister in Jersey revealed yesterday that the company had requested tens of millions of pounds to keep it afloat over the past 12 months and millions more to continue operating until next spring.

Another senior politician in Jersey used parliamentary privilege to claim that Guernsey and Condor were operating a ‘cartel’ and that the company’s true financial health was being hidden from the public.

Condor refused to comment on what was said at the States of Jersey meeting.

But Guernsey’s Economic Development chief Neil Inder insisted ‘good progress’ was being made in talks with parent company Brittany Ferries over running freight and passenger services exclusively to Guernsey from April, after the recent breakdown of a joint process to appoint a single operator . throughout both islands.

It was also announced yesterday that Brittany Ferries had rejected Jersey’s request to temporarily continue services to the island throughout next summer.

Jersey Economic Development Minister Kirsten Morel has launched a new tender process for a dedicated Jersey-only service and said she plans to announce the preferred bidder within the next month.

He said it was “hugely embarrassing” to be denied the chance to fully investigate the financial viability of one of the original bidders – believed to be Condor – after Guernsey rushed to declare Brittany Ferries as its preferred bidder on October 30. .

This claim stunned MP Inder, who issued a statement late yesterday criticizing “a false narrative being put forward about the process” and providing the strongest hint that the Condor/Brittany bid had received the highest score against objective criteria in the original tender process.

“Our chosen provider, Brittany Ferries, was selected based on our joint tender with Jersey in accordance with the published procurement documents,” said Deputy Inder.

‘There appears to be a false narrative about the process. We did not break away from the process, we followed the process and a preferred bidder had to be selected. ‘We provided the certainty our island deserved and only did so after giving Jersey two weeks’ notice of our intention after both islands had closed the scoring.’

At the State meeting in Jersey, MP Morel said when pressed as to why he had not appointed DFDS as the privileged bidder he could not give a clear explanation, only that he had to ‘treat both parties equally’.