Pictured are FTC Chairman, Jefferson Cumberbatch (right); CEO Mrs. Sandra Sealy (left); and Deputy Chairman, Adrian Elcock.
THE Fair Trading Commission (FTC) says it intends to stoutly resist the appeal brought against its decision in the proposed merger of the Barbados National Terminal Company Limited (BNTCL) by SOL St. Lucia.
Commission Chairman, Jefferson Cumberbatch, made the comments on Thursday night just before the presentation of this year’s FTC lecture at the Accra Beach Hotel and Spa.
In the decision handed down last November, the Commission had said no to the proposed merger, citing four reasons for its decision. It also meant that Government, which owns the BNTCL, was unable to access at least $200 million from the transaction if it had taken place, which would have given a boost to the country’s declining foreign reserves.
However, Cumberbatch pointed out that BNTCL Holdings Limited appealed the findings of the Commission under section 36 of the Fair Competition Act. He said it is an appeal “that the Commission, convinced of the unassailability of our decision, intends to stoutly resist”.
The matter was first heard on February 28 and the parties are expected to return to Court on May 8.
He also revealed that the decision was the most critical, and arguably the most publicly anticipated, document delivered by the Commission in 2017.
“Indeed, this decision, regrettably, was viewed by some in purely partisan political terms; as a victory for the incumbent administration if it were permitted and as a defeat if it were disallowed,” Cumberbatch remarked.
He went on, “Indeed, a premature, uninformed and inaccurate disclosure of the decision by some sections of the press evoked defamatory imputations of incompetence and worse on the part of the Commission by some members of the public clearly disappointed with the disclosure.”
Cumberbatch said that one of the grounds highlighted by the FTC in not allowing the merger is that the transaction would have significantly reduced competition in the upstream market for the storage and distribution of auto fuels, JetA1 fuel and heavy Fuel Oil. Another reason cited is that it could potentially have a negative impact on consumers with regard to an increase in the throughput fee. The third is that it would restrict competition owning to an agreed 15-year moratorium clause; and the fourth is that it lacked real efficiencies, structural or otherwise, that would be required to offset the effects of any limitation on competition.