Dr Taimoon Stew­art

On Jan­u­ary 26, 2026, the Speak­er of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, Jagdeo Singh, chaired the Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and Ap­pro­pri­a­tions Com­mit­tee (Pt. 2) on the State’s ac­qui­si­tion of phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals.

Dur­ing the hear­ing, Mr Singh had cause to ques­tion the ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor of the T&T Fair Trad­ing Com­mis­sion, Be­van Nar­i­nesingh.

As an ex­pert in this field, I need to point out sev­er­al mis­un­der­stand­ings by Mr Singh of how a com­pe­ti­tion com­mis­sion func­tions.

Mr Singh in­sist­ed that Mr Nar­i­nesingh erred in re­quest­ing the sub­mis­sion of a for­mal com­plaint form be­fore an in­ves­ti­ga­tion could be start­ed since the Fair Trad­ing Act has no pro­vi­sion re­quir­ing this. In fact few, if any, com­pe­ti­tion laws con­tain spe­cif­ic pro­vi­sions re­lat­ed to com­plaint forms or oth­er pro­ce­dur­al mat­ters. Com­mis­sions nor­mal­ly is­sue reg­u­la­tions and guid­ance pa­pers on pro­ce­dures to be fol­lowed. EU com­pe­ti­tion law is con­tained in Ar­ti­cles 101 and 102 of the Treaty for the Func­tion­ing of the Eu­ro­pean Union. Nowhere in those ar­ti­cles are com­plaint forms men­tioned.

The EU Com­mis­sion is­sued Reg­u­la­tion (EC) no. 773/2004 of April 2004, which pro­vides a com­plaint form that re­quires com­plaints to pro­vide in­for­ma­tion on a spe­cif­ic mar­ket where they have con­cerns, iden­ti­fy­ing the firms and prod­ucts con­cerned, and de­scrib­ing the prac­tice that they ob­served. This in­for­ma­tion is in­tend­ed to help the EU Com­mis­sion to de­tect prob­lems in that mar­ket and it serves as start­ing point for de­cid­ing whether to open a for­mal in­ves­ti­ga­tion. Sub­mis­sion of an of­fi­cial com­plaint form is manda­to­ry.

In the case of the Fed­er­al Trade Com­mis­sion of the US, which en­forces US an­titrust laws, there is no men­tion of com­plaint forms in any of their an­titrust laws, but the Com­mis­sion does have com­plaint forms, though sub­mis­sion of same is not manda­to­ry.

The Ja­maica Fair Com­pe­ti­tion Act has no pro­vi­sions ad­dress­ing com­plaint forms, but there are com­plaint forms on its web­site and sub­mis­sion is not manda­to­ry.

My point is that com­pe­ti­tion laws do not gen­er­al­ly in­clude pro­vi­sions on com­plaint forms. There is no stan­dard ap­proach to re­quir­ing a com­plaint form to be sub­mit­ted and it is left to the in­di­vid­ual com­mis­sion’s dis­cre­tion.

The TTFTC web­site states very clear­ly that all com­plaints must be sub­mit­ted us­ing the com­plaint form on its web­site.

The chair ex­pressed con­cern that the FTC was re­quest­ing in­for­ma­tion from the Pri­vate Phar­ma­cy Re­tail Busi­ness As­so­ci­a­tion (PPR­BA) in a ‘shop­ping list’ as he called it. He in­sist­ed that in­for­ma­tion gath­er­ing must be part of an in­ves­ti­ga­tion. This is in­cor­rect. I al­ready showed above that the EU re­quires manda­to­ry sub­mis­sion of the com­plaint form and spec­i­fies in­for­ma­tion to be sub­mit­ted at that time. Both the Bar­ba­dos and Ja­maica Fair Trad­ing Com­mis­sion con­firmed that they first re­quest spe­cif­ic in­for­ma­tion from the com­plainant be­fore de­cid­ing whether to open an in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

The Fed­er­al Trade Com­mis­sion, once alert­ed to pos­si­ble mis­con­duct, and hav­ing done a pre­lim­i­nary screen­ing to de­ter­mine whether there is con­cern, then re­quests in­for­ma­tion from the com­plainant, gath­ers in­for­ma­tion through open sources, and con­ducts vol­un­tary in­ter­views with the com­plainant and oth­er mar­ket par­tic­i­pants who are will­ing to talk vol­un­tar­i­ly.

Once there is suf­fi­cient in­for­ma­tion gath­ered, the staff sub­mits the re­sults of the pre­lim­i­nary in­quiry to the Com­mis­sion­ers who then de­cide on whether or not the Com­mis­sion should open a for­mal in­ves­ti­ga­tion. On­ly when a for­mal in­ves­ti­ga­tion is open, can the TTFTC use com­pul­so­ry process­es to re­quest doc­u­ments, is­sue sub­poe­nas etc.

The se­quence of events in this case is that the lawyer for the PPR­BA sent a let­ter on Sep­tem­ber 6, 2024 stat­ing that there is a mo­nop­oly in the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal dis­tri­b­u­tion sec­tor that should be in­ves­ti­gat­ed. No in­for­ma­tion was pro­vid­ed on an­ti-com­pet­i­tive prac­tices. The let­ter stat­ed that an­oth­er let­ter will fol­low with in­for­ma­tion. The TTFTC then re­quest­ed one week lat­er that the PPR­BA sub­mit the for­mal com­plaint form be­fore they could de­cide on ini­ti­at­ing an in­ves­ti­ga­tion. No fol­low-up let­ter was ever sent by the PPR­BA. No for­mal com­plaint form was sub­mit­ted. An ini­tial com­plaint with­out fur­ther in­for­ma­tion nev­er tells you if there is some­thing worth in­ves­ti­gat­ing. Plus, the com­plaint was that there was a mo­nop­oly in the dis­tri­b­u­tion of phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, but this is not a breach of the law.

In June of 2025, a news­pa­per re­port made al­le­ga­tions of spe­cif­ic an­ti-com­pet­i­tive prac­tices by the dom­i­nant firms in the dis­tri­b­u­tion phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal sec­tor. Based on this news­pa­per re­port, the TTFTC wrote to the PPR­BA stat­ing that there may be a pri­ma fa­cie case that could jus­ti­fy in­ves­ti­ga­tion. The chair seemed con­cerned that the TTFTC could use a news­pa­per re­port as a ba­sis for do­ing fur­ther in­quiry. It is nor­mal prac­tice for com­pe­ti­tion com­mis­sions to use sources, such as me­dia re­ports, to alert them to the pos­si­bil­i­ty of an­ti-com­pet­i­tive prac­tices.

Still wait­ing for fur­ther in­for­ma­tion from the PPR­BA, in good faith, the TTFTC pro­ceed­ed to gath­er in­for­ma­tion from open sources, in­ter­view stake­hold­ers (the PPR­BA and the Med­ical As­so­ci­a­tion) and wrote to the Min­istry of Trade for fund­ing to con­duct a mar­ket study of the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal dis­tri­b­u­tion sec­tor to iden­ti­fy spe­cif­ic drugs and their sub­sti­tutes that may have a mar­ket con­cen­tra­tion, and where there may be mo­nop­oly pow­er.

The TTFTC ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor stat­ed that the TTFTC did not have the staff and re­sources to do this and cal­cu­lat­ed that it would cost $1 mil­lion to hire the nec­es­sary con­sul­tants. The Min­istry of Trade did not re­spond to the FTC’s let­ter.

The chair in­sist­ed that Ar­ti­cle 5 of the Act em­pow­ers the Com­mis­sion to ini­ti­ate an in­ves­ti­ga­tion of its own ac­cord. True. But what con­sti­tutes the Com­mis­sion? For the TTFTC, it is the staff, the CEO, and the board. With­out the board, the Com­mis­sion is not ful­ly con­sti­tut­ed. This Com­mis­sion is an in­ves­tiga­tive in­sti­tu­tion. The staff of the Com­mis­sion gath­ers in­for­ma­tion, sub­mits a re­port to the board, which then de­cides whether to pro­ceed with a for­mal in­ves­ti­ga­tion. This Com­mis­sion is fash­ioned af­ter the Fed­er­al Trade Com­mis­sion in the US in which the staff gath­ers pre­lim­i­nary in­for­ma­tion which is then pre­sent­ed to the Com­mis­sion­ers. And on­ly the Com­mis­sion­ers can ap­prove of the ini­ti­a­tion of a for­mal in­ves­ti­ga­tion. The chair there­fore erred in in­sist­ing that the CEO has the pow­er to ini­ti­ate a for­mal in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

The chair list­ed the wide-rang­ing pow­ers con­ferred on the TTFTC by the Fair Trad­ing Act to re­quire sub­mis­sion of in­for­ma­tion. What the Chair missed is that those pow­ers can on­ly be in­voked af­ter a for­mal in­ves­ti­ga­tion has been opened. And the TTFTC can­not open a for­mal in­ves­ti­ga­tion with­out the ap­proval of the Board of Com­mis­sion­ers.

In sum, the Chair was wrong that:

n The TTFTC was not au­tho­rised to re­quire sub­mis­sion of a for­mal com­plaint form;

n The TTFTC could not re­quest in­for­ma­tion from the com­plainant un­til an in­ves­ti­ga­tion has been opened;

n Gath­er­ing in­for­ma­tion in­for­mal­ly and con­duct­ing a mar­ket in­quiry should not be done out­side of a for­mal in­ves­ti­ga­tion; and

n The CEO has the pow­er to open a for­mal in­ves­ti­ga­tion and in­voke its com­pul­so­ry pow­ers to re­quire in­for­ma­tion with­out a board.

The chair closed the ses­sion by re­mind­ing the CEO that the TTFTC is the for­mal po­lice­man of the mar­ket. “The Mar­ket”. The whole mar­ket of Trinidad and To­ba­go. All the goods and ser­vices pro­duced or im­port­ed, dis­trib­uted, and re­tailed. And the staff of the TTFTC con­sists of the CEO, a lawyer, and an in­ves­ti­ga­tor housed in an open space in the Min­istry of Trade.

It is pa­thet­ic that the bud­get for the up­keep of the Gov­ern­ment’s golf course in To­ba­go is greater than the bud­get of the TTFTC. It is time that the Gov­ern­ment treats the TTFTC with the re­spect com­men­su­rate with its re­spon­si­bil­i­ties by in­creas­ing its bud­get (US$250,000 per an­num while the Ja­maica FTC re­ceives US$1 mil­lion an­nu­al­ly, and that is con­sid­ered in­suf­fi­cient), so that they could hire at least three lawyers, three econ­o­mists, and three in­ves­ti­ga­tors, pro­vide them with ad­e­quate fa­cil­i­ties in­stead of the open space in the Min­istry of Trade, and ap­point a Board of Com­mis­sion­ers.

I was deeply con­cerned by the tone of the hear­ing, and an in­ter­ro­ga­tion based on false premis­es.