(Trinidad Express) CARICOM Secretary General Irwin LaRocque is expected to appear before judges at the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) in Port of Spain today to testify on behalf of Trinidad Cement Ltd (TCL).
The company was granted special leave by the CCJ, on January 25, to commence proceedings against the Competition Commission which allegedly launched an investigation against TCL without its knowledge.
The matter was heard before CCJ President Sir Dennis Byron and Judges David Hayton, Rolston Nelson, Adrian Saunders, Desiree Bernard, Jacob Wit and Winston Anderson.
The investigation against TCL, conducted between April 16, 2010 and May 2011, involved allegations of anti-competitive conduct on TCL’s part, and companies within the TCL Group of Companies, in relation to the sale and distribution of Portland cement within Caricom member states. TCL also challenged a decision taken by the Commission to hold an enquiry into the alleged conduct.
In the application for special leave filed in November last year, TCL said the request for an investigation was apparently made by the Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED).
TCL claims it has never received a copy of the COTED request and only found out about it upon receiving the Notice of Enquiry from the Commission on September 2, 2011. The notice was dated August 24, 2011.
The company says the COTED request, by its very terms, was outside the boundaries of the permissible request which COTED was authorised to make. TCL says it was never consulted by the Commission, was never provided with a copy of the COTED request or given an opportunity to make representations so that the Commission could have made a preliminary assessment as to whether the request by COTED merited further consideration and investigation.
Appearing on behalf of TCL are attorneys Dr Claude Denbow SC, Donna Denbow, Darrell Allahar and Jerome Rajcoomar while Queen’s Counsel Roger Forde and attorney Nargis Hardyal are representing the Commission.
