Sascha Wil­son

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (T&TEC) is be­ing sued by a com­pa­ny that paid over $1 mil­lion for the in­stal­la­tion of in­fra­struc­ture for a sup­ply of elec­tric­i­ty “un­der eco­nom­ic duress.”

In the claim, Anand Low Price Su­per­mar­ket Com­pa­ny is chal­leng­ing the le­gal­i­ty of the Com­mis­sion’s cap­i­tal con­tri­bu­tion pol­i­cy which re­quires cus­tomers to pay for elec­tri­cal lines and in­fra­struc­ture.

The com­pa­ny, rep­re­sent­ed by at­tor­ney Michael Rooplal, is ask­ing the court to find that the pol­i­cy is il­le­gal as it is ul­tra vires the T&TEC Act.

The com­pa­ny is al­so seek­ing re­im­burse­ment in the sum of $1.08 mil­lion. Since T&TEC is the coun­try’s sole elec­tric­i­ty sup­pli­er, the com­pa­ny is con­tend­ing that the mon­ey was paid un­der eco­nom­ic duress. Ac­cord­ing to the state­ment of case, in 2012 the com­pa­ny ap­proached T&TEC for the sup­ply of elec­tric­i­ty to its premis­es at Siparia Erin Road, Pe­nal. The com­pa­ny was there­after in­formed that it would have to pay a Cap­i­tal Con­tri­bu­tion to in­stall the in­fra­struc­ture nec­es­sary for the elec­tric­i­ty sup­ply.

The com­pa­ny wrote to T&TEC in March 2016 in­form­ing them of the volt­age re­quire­ment and lay­out of the premis­es.

In Jan­u­ary 2017, T&TEC ad­vised the com­pa­ny of its terms and con­di­tions, in­clud­ing the pro­vi­sion and in­stal­la­tion of civ­il costs.

The com­pa­ny was first ad­vised that it would be re­quired to pay $1,07 mil­lion, then the fol­low­ing month T&TEC sent an­oth­er let­ter with a re­vised cost of $1,08 mil­lion.

The com­pa­ny paid the sum in March 2017.

How­ev­er, in Oc­to­ber 2017, T&TEC ad­vised the com­pa­ny that a sur­plus had been paid and it would be cred­it­ed to one of the com­pa­ny’s ac­counts. In re­sponse to a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter, T&TEC’s cor­po­rate sec­re­tary stat­ed that the com­pa­ny would not be re­im­bursed.

The com­pa­ny fur­ther claimed that oth­er T&TEC cus­tomers in the Pe­nal/Debe re­gion have ben­e­fit­ed from the in­fra­struc­ture and it has been dis­crim­i­nat­ed against.

The com­pa­ny al­so con­tend­ed that it has been de­prived of cru­cial fi­nan­cial cap­i­tal which would have been oth­er­wise used in the fur­ther­ance of its busi­ness.

It is al­so seek­ing a de­c­la­ra­tion that T&TEC had been un­just­ly en­riched. The claim was filed elec­tron­i­cal­ly and a hear­ing date has not yet been fixed.