The Paris commercial court launched safeguard procedure for the Channel Tunnel operator Eurotunnel on Wednesday, allowing it to cut and restructure a debt mountain of 9.0 billion euros (11.5 billion U.S. dollars).

Eurotunnel's chairman Jacques Gounon was satisfied with the announcement, saying "Negotiations should result in a satisfactory proposition quite quickly."

"The company, assisted by its two administrators, is going to relaunch negotiations immediately, starting with its last proposition of July 12, 2006," he said.

Gounon said that the court decision was "the best of all solutions that they (small shareholders) could have envisaged".

The court opened an observation period of six months and set two months for the declaration of creditors.

The safeguard procedure, similar to U.S. Chapter 11 bankruptcy law, was introduced in France at the beginning of the year to help companies avoid declaring bankruptcy.

The company made the court application after two days of talks with creditors had failed to produce a deal three weeks ago.

Source: Xinhua