Derek Achong

The Caribbean Court of Jus­tice (CCJ) yes­ter­day grant­ed an ap­pli­ca­tion for spe­cial leave to Trinidad Ce­ment Lim­it­ed (TCL) al­low­ing it to chal­lenge a re­port on the re­gion's trade in ce­ment un­der­tak­en by Cari­com's Com­pe­ti­tion Com­mis­sion. The ac­tion per­tains to an in­ves­ti­ga­tion con­duct­ed by the com­mis­sion in­to the op­er­a­tions of TCL in the pro­duc­tion and sale of ce­ment in Cari­com, which com­menced in De­cem­ber 2009. In grant­i­ng the ap­pli­ca­tion the sev­en judges that sat on the yes­ter­day's pan­el, which was head­ed by CCJ pres­i­dent Sir Charles By­ron, or­dered that at­tor­neys rep­re­sent­ing the com­pa­ny file doc­u­ments re­lat­ing to the case with­in sev­en days. Yes­ter­day's sit­ting of the court was heard in the sec­ond court­room of the CCJ's Hen­ry Street, Port-of-Spain head­quar­ters. In TCL's ap­pli­ca­tion which was filed on No­vem­ber 1 last year, the com­pa­ny's le­gal team led by Se­nior Coun­sel Dr Claude Den­bow said that his clients were seek­ing to claim de­clara­to­ry and in­junc­tive re­lief from the courts as well as an­cil­lary or­ders against the com­mis­sion.

The Suri­name-based com­mis­sion, which was es­tab­lished in 2008 pur­suant to Ar­ti­cle 171 of the Re­vised Treaty of Ch­aguara­mas, is man­dat­ed to mon­i­tor, in­ves­ti­gate and pe­nalise en­ter­pris­es whose con­duct prej­u­dices trade and dis­torts com­pe­ti­tion with­in the Caribbean Sin­gle Mar­ket and Econ­o­my (CSME). Ac­cord­ing to the facts which were out­lined by TCL in its ap­pli­ca­tion, the com­pa­ny claims that al­though the in­ves­ti­ga­tion be­gan in late 2009, TCL was on­ly in­formed of it on Sep­tem­ber 2, last year, up­on re­ceipt of a no­tice of en­quiry is­sued by the com­mis­sion. The re­quest for the in­ves­ti­ga­tion al­leged­ly em­anat­ed from Cari­com's Coun­cil for Trade and Eco­nom­ic De­vel­op­ment (COT­ED). TCL al­so claimed that it was nev­er con­sult­ed by the com­mis­sion or giv­en the op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­spond and was there­fore de­prived of its right to make rep­re­sen­ta­tions to the com­mis­sion.

"TCL says that it has been ir­re­triev­ably de­prived of its right and en­ti­tle­ment to avail it­self of the pro­ce­dur­al op­por­tu­ni­ties to ob­ject to and to make rep­re­sen­ta­tions be­fore any de­ci­sions were made by the com­mis­sion to in­ves­ti­gate and fur­ther to con­duct an en­quiry in re­spect to the COT­ED re­quest," the ap­pli­ca­tion stat­ed. In the ap­pli­ca­tion the com­pa­ny said it was re­quest­ing that the CCJ set aside or quash the en­quiry re­lat­ing to the in­ves­ti­ga­tion and/or to re­strain or stay the hold­ing of the pur­port­ed en­quiry.

In re­sponse to TCL's ap­pli­ca­tion, Bar­ba­di­an Queen's Coun­sel Roger Forde, who is lead­ing the com­mis­sion's le­gal team in the mat­ter, claimed that the com­pa­ny's ac­tion was pre­ma­ture. Forde's ar­gu­ments were re­ject­ed by the pan­el who stat­ed that the re­quire­ments in law for the grant­i­ng of the ap­pli­ca­tion were sat­is­fied by TCL's at­tor­neys. The T&T At­tor­ney Gen­er­al's of­fice was al­so list­ed as a par­ty to the mat­ter and was rep­re­sent­ed by a three-mem­ber le­gal team. The mat­ter was ad­journed by By­ron to a date that would be de­ter­mined by the court once the rel­e­vant doc­u­ments were filed.