TRINIDAD Cement Limited (TCL) has been granted special leave by the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) to commence proceedings against the Competition Commission which, TCL claims, had launched an investigation against the company without its knowledge.

The matter was heard on Wednesday before CCJ President Sir Dennis Byron and Judges David Hayton, Desiree Bernard, Rolston Nelson, Adrian Saunders, Desiree Bernard, David Hayton, Jacob Wit and Winston Anderson.

The investigation against TCL involved allegations of anti-competitive conduct on the part of the company 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 says 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 were attorneys Dr Claude Denbow SC, Donna Denbow, Darrel Allahar and Jerome Rajcoomar while Queen's Counsel Roger Forde and attorney Nargis Hardyal represented the Commission.