State-owned Petrotrin has failed in its bid to bring a law­suit against the Min­is­ter of Labour and Small En­ter­prise De­vel­op­ment Jen­nifer Bap­tiste-Primus and the Reg­is­trar of the In­dus­tri­al Court.

On Tues­day, Petrotrin’s lawyers filed a ju­di­cial re­view law­suit in which they claimed both par­ties had act­ed un­rea­son­ably in reg­is­ter­ing a Mem­o­ran­dum of Agree­ment (MoA) signed be­tween it­self and the Oil­fields Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU) in April.

How­ev­er, dur­ing a pre­lim­i­nary hear­ing on the case in the Port-of-Spain High Court yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, High Court Judge Car­ol Gob­in re­fused the com­pa­ny leave to pur­sue the claim.

The OW­TU was not named as a par­ty to the pro­ceed­ings but was still al­lowed by Gob­in to present sub­mis­sions.

In a press re­lease yes­ter­day evening, the OW­TU de­scribed Gob­in’s de­ci­sion as an im­por­tant le­gal vic­to­ry and ac­cused the com­pa­ny of us­ing the law­suit to de­lay the hear­ing of its in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions of­fence against it.

The MOA is at the cen­tre of the OW­TU’s case be­ing heard by the In­dus­tri­al Court this week. Yes­ter­day’s hear­ing in that mat­ter was ad­journed af­ter a judge fell ill.

In the of­fence com­plaint, the OW­TU is al­leg­ing Petrotrin breached the MoA by de­cid­ing to shut its op­er­a­tions with­out con­sult­ing with the union first. In ad­di­tion to a $4,000 fine, the union is seek­ing an or­der com­pelling the com­pa­ny to post­pone its planned clo­sure on No­vem­ber 30 and re­turn to the ne­go­ti­a­tion ta­ble.

In its failed law­suit, the com­pa­ny was claim­ing the min­is­ter’s del­e­gates with­in the min­istry on­ly had the pow­er to re­fer the doc­u­ment to the In­dus­tri­al Court if it dealt with a trade dis­pute be­tween the par­ties.

Petrotrin not­ed that there was no dis­pute be­tween it and the OW­TU and the MoA was mere­ly meant to record a com­mit­ment and agree­ment be­tween the par­ties over the ur­gent need to re­struc­ture the com­pa­ny.

“Fur­ther, the Min­is­ter’s del­e­gate act­ed con­trary to the prin­ci­ples of fair­ness by fail­ing to in­form and/or con­sult with and/or al­low the ap­pli­cant to make rep­re­sen­ta­tions pri­or to for­ward­ing the MoA to the Court,” Petrotrin’s lawyers stat­ed, as they claimed it was the union that re­quest­ed that the doc­u­ment be sent on June 4.

The lawyers al­leged that the In­dus­tri­al Court Reg­is­trar “com­mit­ted a wrong­ful act or act­ed in dere­lic­tion of du­ty” by fail­ing to recog­nise the is­sues with the reg­is­tra­tion when it was done on Ju­ly 20.

Petrotrin is al­so com­plain­ing it was on­ly in­formed of the reg­is­tra­tion a day be­fore the union filed for the of­fence ear­li­er this month.

The com­pa­ny claimed the reg­is­trar’s ac­tions led to them be­ing in an un­ex­pect­ed and dis­ad­van­ta­geous po­si­tion in the on­go­ing pro­ceed­ings.

Petrotrin al­so ad­mit­ted the case was filed late, as it should have been done with­in three months of the of­fend­ing de­ci­sion. How­ev­er, it asked for an ex­ten­sion of the lim­it as it point­ed out that it was on­ly in­formed of it ear­li­er this month and its lawyers were pre­oc­cu­pied with the pro­ceed­ings be­fore the In­dus­tri­al Court.

Through the law­suit, Petrotrin was seek­ing de­c­la­ra­tions that both par­ties act­ed un­law­ful­ly and or­ders quash­ing their re­spec­tive de­ci­sions.

Petrotrin is be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Regi­nald Ar­mour, SC, Vanes­sa Gopaul, Mar­celle Fer­di­nand and Raphael Ajod­hia. The union is be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Dou­glas Mendes, SC.