Lawyers rep­re­sent­ing Petrotrin and the Gov­ern­ment were be­fore the Court of Ap­peal up to late last night in their bid for a stay of an in­junc­tion bar­ring the com­pa­ny from ter­mi­nat­ing its work­ers.

The hear­ing be­gan around 4 pm and by the time Ap­pel­late Judge Char­maine Pem­ber­ton took a break around 7 pm, Petrotrin’s lawyers had on­ly just com­plet­ed their sub­mis­sions.

Dur­ing the break, at­tor­neys were seen mak­ing calls to can­cel their plans for the night, as both the State and the Oil­fields Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU) were al­so ex­pect­ed to present lengthy sub­mis­sions on the is­sue when the hear­ing re­sumed.

Le­gal sources close to the case sug­gest­ed that Pem­ber­ton could have cho­sen to ei­ther con­sid­er the case and de­liv­er her de­ci­sion late last night or ad­journ her de­ci­sion to this morn­ing af­ter the marathon hear­ing.

At the start of yes­ter­day’s hear­ing, at­tor­ney An­tho­ny Bul­lock, who is rep­re­sent­ing the OW­TU, asked for an ad­journ­ment as Se­nior Coun­sel Dou­glas Mendes, who is lead­ing him, is abroad.

The re­quest was op­posed by the com­pa­ny and the State.

As Pem­ber­ton up­held the ob­jec­tion, she agreed to hear sub­mis­sions on the is­sue of the stay but ad­journed the sub­stan­tive ap­peal against the in­junc­tion to next Thurs­day, when it will be heard be­fore a full pan­el of judges.

In the event the com­pa­ny gets the stay, it may im­me­di­ate­ly re­sume is­su­ing ter­mi­na­tion let­ters and of­fer­ing vol­un­tary sep­a­ra­tion to em­ploy­ees pend­ing the de­ter­mi­na­tion of the ap­peal.

In its no­tice of ap­peal, Petrotrin raised 15 grounds chal­leng­ing sev­en le­gal find­ings made by the In­dus­tri­al Court. How­ev­er, the com­pa­ny did not raise any com­plaint about the facts on the is­sue con­sid­ered by the court.

The com­pa­ny’s at­tor­neys are claim­ing that the In­dus­tri­al Court had no ju­ris­dic­tion as the in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions of­fence com­plaint filed by the union is a crim­i­nal of­fence that does not lend it­self to in­junc­tive re­lief. It is al­so claim­ing that the court erred when it ruled that the com­pa­ny had a du­ty to con­sult with the union.

The com­pa­ny is al­so con­tend­ing that the court failed to ful­ly con­sid­er its and the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al’s ev­i­dence over the im­pact of Petrotrin on the na­tion­al econ­o­my.

In its sub­mis­sions, the AG’s Of­fice is re­ly­ing on an af­fi­davit pro­vid­ed by the per­ma­nent sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Fi­nance Vish­nu Dhan­paul.

In the af­fi­davit, Dhan­paul gave de­tails of the im­pact of the in­junc­tion on Petrotrin and the State’s fi­nan­cial po­si­tion. He said since the in­junc­tion was grant­ed by the In­dus­tri­al Court on Mon­day, the Gov­ern­ment had re­ceived sev­er­al re­quests for guar­an­tees from some of the com­pa­ny’s cred­i­tors.

“The dan­ger of these in­creas­ing calls for guar­an­tees is that it will ad­verse­ly af­fect the na­tion­al debt ra­tio, which is al­ready more than op­ti­mum,” Dhan­paul said.

“The ef­fect of any de­lay in the ur­gent­ly need­ed re­struc­tur­ing of the as­sets and debts of Petrotrin, as is like­ly to be oc­ca­sioned by the grant of in­junc­tive re­lief, will on­ly in­crease in­vestor un­cer­tain­ty and in­sta­bil­i­ty,” he added.

In its com­plaint, the OW­TU is al­leg­ing that Petrotrin com­mit­ted the of­fence by fail­ing to con­sult with it be­fore tak­ing the de­ci­sion to close the com­pa­ny and send home al­most 5,000 work­ers. It claims the com­pa­ny breached a mem­o­ran­dum of agree­ment signed be­tween the par­ties in April, as the com­pa­ny on­ly in­formed the union of the de­ci­sion, af­ter mak­ing it in con­junc­tion with Cab­i­net in Ju­ly.