(10 Sep 2013, 2:28 pm)eezypeazy wrote NTL is different. It's merely a Competition Act-compliant method of offering multi-modal, multi-operator ticketing. If the scheme was not open to participation by any and all operators, it would not meet the competition requirements of various Transport Acts and the Competition Act (and its special multi-operator ticketing arrangements) and would be declared illegal. Without knowing the articles of association of NTL, I can't claim this to be the gospel truth, but I'm fairly certain that's how it works.
It's a private limited company with share capital. It makes no difference whether it's a company selling multi-operator bus tickets, or a group of lads selling fish down the market. It has to follow the same rules as any other private limited company, which certainly aren't different for the transport industry. The stake each company holds in the company is vital, as they are voting shares. I gave the example of GNE and Stagecoach above, as you could already class them as a coalition (NEBOA), and therefore NEBOA have overall voting power for NTL. That being said, it's important to point out that the PTE could also form a coalition with either Stagecoach and/or GNE, and have more voting power than the rest of the share holders put together. However, the PTE plus every shareholder, other than Stagecoach and GNE, put together as a coalition would only have 47.7% of shares, and not enough voting power.
I do agree with your point, and I understand NTL's establishment is to get around other laws like you say. With my limited knowledge of business, I'd say NTL are securing agreements with operators to allow their members to use their services, for an annual fee that NTL will pay to the said operator. As a result, NTL can sell end users membership (in the form of season tickets).
In reality, this is no different to how a lot of companies actually operate these days. It gets quite messy, but I'll try and explain using IT service providers as an example:
Company-A - IT Support Company
Company-B - Organisation wishing to procure IT services
Company-C - Strategic partner to company-A in IT Support
1) Company-A that signs a contract with company-B to provide IT support services to company-B's organisation.
2) Company-A in reality has no intention of supplying this service, so outsources the work to company-C.
3) Because company-B has an agreement with company-A that all it's members (staff in this case) can use company-A's IT support services, the agreement between company-A and company-C will categorically state that company-C has to provide those services to company-B directly for an annual fee paid to company-A.
Someone with a bit more business knowledge than me might want to chip in at this point.
