CCJ rules in favor of the government in its case with Tomza Gas, etal 

A major legal victory was handed to the Government of Belize this afternoon, as the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) overturned previous rulings in the long-running case involving Gas Tomza Ltd. and other LPG companies.  In a decisive judgment delivered from Port of Spain, Trinidad, the CCJ found no breaches of constitutional rights by the Government or the Controller of Supplies, fully rejecting the conclusion of the lower courts.  The ruling comes out of the appeal titled “Controller of Supplies and Others v. Gas Tomza Ltd and Others.” The Government, represented by Senior Counsel Eamon Courtenay, had challenged the April 2024 decision of the Court of Appeal, which had previously found that the companies’ constitutional rights to work and property had been infringed.  The Court of Appeal had also set aside a $10 million High Court award, ordered the matter back for reassessment of damages, and removed the statutory requirement for LPG importers to have 1.5 million U.S. gallons of storage capacity.  However, today’s CCJ ruling completely reverses that position.  In summarizing the more than 200-page judgment, CCJ President Justice Winston Anderson declared that the Court of Appeal’s findings were incorrect. The CCJ found no constitutional breaches by the Government; quashed the Court of Appeal’s orders to amend legislation; quashed the order to remit the matter for damages assessment; affirmed the decision not to award vindicatory damages and issued no order as to costs.  This means the Government’s regulatory framework for the LPG industry, introduced to safeguard national supply, consumer protection, and price stability, remains fully intact.  Senior Counsel Courtenay welcomed the ruling, saying it reaffirms the Government’s authority to regulate essential industries in public interest.

Eamon Courtenay, Attorney for GOB: “Government decided some time ago to introduce a system whereby LPG would be imported by sea into the Big Creek plant and then from there the existing liquid petroleum gas companies could go there and buy it and retail it to their existing companies. It turned out that the LPG companies made a profit on the importation of the LPG and then on top of that they charged the approved regulated price to consumers on which they were of course making an additional profit. So they commenced a claim against the government. At the High Court they were awarded in excess of $60 million dollars. The Court of Appeals set aside that decision but remitted it to the High Court to say do the assessment of damages again. The government appealed to the CCJ and today the CCJ ruled that the Court of Appeals was wrong. There was no breach of any constitutional right. There is no breach of any right to carry on business the way they were doing it. That they had pleaded their damages wrongly, they had not proven their damages and so their claim was essentially dismissed. So I think we now know as a fact one that legislation is constitutionally compliant. The way in which the market has been reorganized from the mass importation by many retailers into one retailer and thereafter distribution within the country that has now been validated by the court and the market can be organized in that way and the government no longer faces any liability. As I mentioned, they were exposed to a claim in excess of $60 million. That is no longer a valid claim and so one thing I should add is that all the while that the gas companies were claiming that not only did they lose money, but their goodwill had been acquired by the government, they continued to carry on business. And I think one of the central rulings of the court was, you can continue to carry on business and say you have lost your goodwill. If you still exist and you’re carrying on business, you have your goodwill. It may have been diminished, it may have been affected, but you have not lost it.”

The dispute traces back to 2019, when the Government introduced the National Liquefied Petroleum Gas Project Act. This legislation reshaped the LPG industry by designating the National Gas Company as the primary importer of butane. Soon after, several former importers, including Gas Tomza, began challenging the new structure on constitutional grounds.  By June 29, 2021, Gas Tomza and other LPG companies formally filed their claim against the Government, alleging that the legislation violated their constitutional rights to work and to property.