Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

The State has been or­dered to pay over $70,000 in com­pen­sa­tion to an in­ter­na­tion­al to­bac­co dis­trib­u­tor with a free zone des­ig­na­tion, whose busi­ness was wrong­ly shut down for a month by a unit of the Min­istry of Health in 2023.

High Court Judge Frank Seep­er­sad or­dered the com­pen­sa­tion yes­ter­day as he par­tial­ly up­held North Amer­i­can Trad­ing Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed’s law­suit against the min­istry and the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al.

The com­pa­ny ini­tial­ly con­tend­ed that it suf­fered al­most US$1 mil­lion in loss­es due to the clo­sure but Jus­tice Seep­er­sad re­ject­ed its claim based on its fail­ure to ad­duce ev­i­dence to but­tress its claim.

Ac­cord­ing to the court fil­ings, the com­pa­ny, which is lo­cat­ed at the In­ter­con­ti­nen­tal Busi­ness Park, Free Zone Com­plex, in D’Abadie, be­gan op­er­at­ing al­most 20 years ago af­ter reg­is­ter­ing with the T&T Free Zones Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed un­der the Free Zone Act.

Un­der the leg­is­la­tion, reg­is­tered and ap­proved com­pa­nies were giv­en spe­cif­ic tax con­ces­sions and ex­emp­tions. The com­pa­ny claimed that it im­ports to­bac­co prod­ucts from in­ter­na­tion­al man­u­fac­tur­ers and stores them in its lo­cal ware­house be­fore ex­port­ing them to re­tail­ers in the Caribbean and Latin Amer­i­ca. It not­ed that it does not re­tail or dis­trib­ute its prod­ucts in T&T.

The com­pa­ny claimed that in Jan­u­ary 2022, it was in­formed of the op­er­a­tional­i­sa­tion of a new spe­cial eco­nom­ic zone regime, which was in­tro­duced un­der then-re­cent­ly pro­claimed leg­is­la­tion.

In No­vem­ber 2022, cus­toms and po­lice of­fi­cers con­duct­ed a raid on the com­pa­ny with­out a war­rant. In Feb­ru­ary 2023, Ger­ren Col­ly­more, the man­ag­er of the min­istry’s To­bac­co Con­trol Unit (TCU), con­tact­ed the com­pa­ny and in­formed it that it could not con­tin­ue to op­er­ate with­out li­cens­es un­der the To­bac­co Con­trol Act.

Al­most a month lat­er, the min­istry re­scind­ed its de­ci­sion based on ad­vice from the AG’s Of­fice.

The com­pa­ny claimed that it lost ap­prox­i­mate­ly US$979,714 by the de­ci­sion as it was forced to stop its planned im­ports and ex­ports.

In de­ter­min­ing the case, Jus­tice Seep­er­sad ruled that the com­pa­ny’s case was not ren­dered aca­d­e­m­ic when the min­istry re­versed its po­si­tion.

He al­so found that the min­istry was wrong to take the ini­tial de­ci­sion it took as the pro­vi­sions of the To­bac­co Con­trol Act did not ap­ply to free zones. “This Court holds the firm view that there was no pow­er un­der the To­bac­co Con­trol Act which en­abled, au­tho­rised or al­lowed the TCU to ex­er­cise any statu­to­ry pow­er with­in the Free Zone,” he said.

Stat­ing that the de­ci­sion was il­le­gal and un­rea­son­able, Jus­tice Seep­er­sad said: “Ev­i­dent­ly, the TCU mis­un­der­stood and/or mis­ap­plied the law hav­ing ob­tained in­ac­cu­rate le­gal ad­vice and its ac­tion im­posed un­rea­son­able and un­jus­ti­fied con­straints up­on the Claimant’s op­er­a­tions.”

Jus­tice Seep­er­sad called on statu­to­ry bod­ies to be cau­tious when dis­charg­ing their man­dates.

“It is trou­bling as in­stances of over­reach are fre­quent­ly com­ing be­fore the Courts but this Court will not tol­er­ate the unau­tho­rised, im­prop­er or un­rea­son­able ex­er­cise of pow­er which cur­tails or re­stricts the rights of cit­i­zens,” he said.

While Jus­tice Seep­er­sad de­clined to award com­pen­sa­tion for the loss­es the com­pa­ny claimed it suf­fered, he did or­der $40,000 in dam­ages for the breach of its con­sti­tu­tion­al right to equal­i­ty be­fore the law and pro­tec­tion of the law.

He al­so or­dered $30,000 in vin­di­ca­to­ry dam­ages, based on the con­duct of the min­istry in act­ing on a mis­ap­pre­hen­sion and the po­lice of­fi­cers in con­duct­ing a search with­out a war­rant.

The State was al­so or­dered to pay the com­pa­ny’s le­gal costs for the case.

The com­pa­ny was rep­re­sent­ed by John Heath, SC, Li­onel Luck­hoo, and Shel­don My­coo. The min­istry was rep­re­sent­ed by Michael Quam­i­na, SC, and Vin­cent Jar­dine. The AG’s Of­fice was rep­re­sent­ed by San­jeev Lal­la and Avion Ro­main.