PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, Nov 6, CMC – The Court of Appeal has dealt a blow to the efforts by the St Lucia-based cement importer, Rock Hard Distribution, and its local dealer Rock Hard Distributors, to challenge the quota and licensing system for cement importation introduced in 2021.
The Court dismissed an appeal from the companies over an earlier court ruling to uphold the system in a matter which was seen as being essentially academic as the system was eventually suspended by the Trinidad and Tobago government in February 2024.
The Court of Appeal found that High Court Judge Jacqueline Wilson was not wrong to have dismissed the companies case months after the system was introduced by the Ministry of Trade and Industry.
“The judge reasoned that the proposed measures did not affect only the appellants, but applied to all importers of cement including other hydraulic cements; and further, the evidence of the respondent demonstrated that in arriving at the decisions, the Minister took fiscal and economic considerations into account and made evaluative assessments,” Justice Prakash Moosai said, delivering the panel’s judgment.
“Thus, the judge was satisfied that the Minister took relevant matters into consideration and undertook the weighing of interests that the Trade Ordinance contemplated,” he added.
The case was the most recent in a series of lawsuits that arose after 2016, when Rock Hard entered the regional cement market that was previously monopolised by Mexican-owned Trinidad Cement Limited (TCL) and its subsidiaries.
Rock Hard had pursued a separate lawsuit before the Trinidad-based Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), which also acts as an international tribunal interpreting the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas that governs the regional integration movement, CARICOM.
The cement company was challenging the government’s move to successfully apply to CARICOM Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED) to increase the Common External Tariff (CET) for hydraulic cement from 35 to 50 per cent in 2021.
In March 2022, the CCJ dismissed the challenge and upheld COTED’s decision.
The CET was eventually lowered to 20 per cent before being reduced to zero per cent in April last year, based on successive annual price increases imposed by TCL between 2021 and 2025.
Rock Hard imports its hydraulic cement from Turkiye. Mootilal Ramhit & Sons Contracting served as local distributor until 2020 when it assigned its rights to its wholly owned subsidiary Rock Hard Distributors.
The companies filed the case against the ministry after it sought to impose a licensing scheme for cement importers and a 75,000 tonne-annual cap on imported cement. The government said that the move was based on concerns raised by TCL over the effect of imported cement on its market share.
The cap, coupled with simultaneous increase in duties on imported cement, resulted in Rock Hard temporarily shutting its local operation. But while the case was before the courts, the annual quota was doubled and the increased quota remained in place for two years before it was eventually suspended.
The Court of Appeal noted that the minister was permitted to impose quotas under a Trade Ordinance from 1958 and that the ordinance was not repealed by the provision of the CARICOM Act as claimed.
“There is nothing in the language of the Act, nor in the wider policy as interpreted by the Caribbean Court of Justice to suggest that the respondent was not empowered under the Trade Ordinance to impose quotas as necessary,” Justice Moosai said.
The Court of Appeal also found that the minister was not required to consult with Rock Hard before implementing the quota and licensing regime and that the government made no assurances capable of creating a legitimate expectation to be consulted.
The Court noted that the ministry had agreed to assign 73 per cent of the quota or 55,000 tonnes to Rock Hard.
“By any objective and reasonable standard, we cannot say that the respondent treated with the appellants in an unfair manner,” Justice Moosai said.
“It is clear that the ministry approached the quota allocation based on traditional import history and market share, which are both objectively rational criteria, and on this basis offered them the lion’s share of the allowance,” he added.
CMC/hg/ir/2026