An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers

@guardian.co.tt

The Min­istry of Trade, In­vest­ment and Tourism is fac­ing mount­ing pres­sure over its fail­ure to ap­point a board to the Fair Trad­ing Com­mis­sion (FTC), with a for­mal pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter now threat­en­ing ju­di­cial re­view.

At­tor­ney Renu­ka Sagram­s­ingh-Sook­lal, act­ing on be­half of busi­ness­man Wen­dell Ever­s­ley and led by Se­nior Coun­sel Stu­art Young, has writ­ten to Min­is­ter of Trade, In­vest­ment and Tourism, Satyaka­ma Ma­haraj, warn­ing that un­less the Com­mis­sion is prop­er­ly con­sti­tut­ed with­in 21 days, pro­ceed­ings will be filed in the High Court. The let­ter ar­gues that the pro­longed ab­sence of a func­tion­ing Com­mis­sion amounts to “un­law­ful ad­min­is­tra­tive in­ac­tion” and un­der­mines com­pe­ti­tion, con­sumer pro­tec­tion, and mar­ket cer­tain­ty.

The FTC has now gone 10 months with­out a board, leav­ing it un­able to en­force its statu­to­ry man­date. Ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor Be­van Nar­i­nesingh con­firmed in late Jan­u­ary that while the Com­mis­sion has re­mained ac­tive in ad­vo­ca­cy and pub­lic ed­u­ca­tion, en­force­ment pow­ers have been frozen.

“We are not do­ing any en­force­ment now in the ab­sence of a board,” he told reg­u­la­tors gath­ered at Nicholas Tow­ers, not­ing that merg­er re­views and abuse of dom­i­nance in­ves­ti­ga­tions have stalled.

That paral­y­sis has rip­pled across the na­tion­al busi­ness land­scape. Most no­tably, Agos­ti­ni’s planned takeover of Pres­tige Hold­ings Ltd has been re­peat­ed­ly de­layed, with the fi­nal ap­proval date ex­tend­ed sev­en times since June 2025.

The pre-ac­tion let­ter, which Guardian Me­dia ob­tained, un­der­scored the wider eco­nom­ic stakes. It warns that unchecked mar­ket con­cen­tra­tion, reg­u­la­to­ry in­sta­bil­i­ty, and ero­sion of con­sumer safe­guards are al­ready harm­ing both do­mes­tic en­ter­prise and for­eign in­vest­ment.

“The omis­sion is not mere­ly tech­ni­cal; it is struc­tur­al and sys­temic in its ef­fect,” the let­ter states, adding that the Com­mis­sion’s ab­sence has caused paral­y­sis in han­dling com­plaints, de­lays in merg­er re­views and ero­sion of con­sumer pro­tec­tion safe­guards.

Un­der the Fair Trad­ing Act, 2006, the Com­mis­sion must be con­sti­tut­ed by a board ap­point­ed by the Pres­i­dent on the Cab­i­net’s ad­vice.

The Act im­pos­es a con­tin­u­ing pub­lic du­ty on the ex­ec­u­tive to en­sure the Com­mis­sion re­mains op­er­a­tional. The let­ter ar­gues that this du­ty is manda­to­ry, not dis­cre­tionary, and that the State’s fail­ure to act is a breach of statu­to­ry oblig­a­tion.

The at­tor­neys have giv­en the Min­istry 14 days to con­firm steps tak­en to­ward ap­point­ing the Com­mis­sion and al­so re­quest­ed that the Min­istry pro­vide a de­fin­i­tive time­line with­in 21 days, and dis­close rea­sons for the de­lay.

Un­less the Min­istry re­sponds sat­is­fac­to­ri­ly, the mat­ter is head­ed to the High Court, set­ting up a po­ten­tial ju­di­cial show­down over gov­er­nance paral­y­sis at the coun­try’s com­pe­ti­tion watch­dog. For busi­ness­es await­ing merg­er ap­provals and con­sumers re­ly­ing on com­pet­i­tive safe­guards, the stakes could not be high­er.

In a no­tice post­ed pub­lished in lo­cal news­pa­pers and on the Trinidad and To­ba­go Stock Ex­change last week, Agos­ti­ni con­firmed the of­fer had now been ex­tend­ed to May 29, 2026 to await all re­quired reg­u­la­to­ry ap­provals, in­clud­ing the ap­proval of the merg­er ap­pli­ca­tion made to the FTC.

The deal, struc­tured as a share swap, would con­sol­i­date sig­nif­i­cant mar­ket pow­er in the restau­rant man­age­ment sec­tor, mak­ing FTC over­sight crit­i­cal.