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  • 6 hours ago

For a third consecutive time, CEPEP Contractor Eastman Enterprises has lost its case against the company.

This time, the Court of Appeal has ruled in favor of CEPEP, delivering a judgment that Eastman did not follow the proper procedure in seeking redress against the termination of its contract.

Alicia Boucher has the details.


Transcript
00:00In a court of appeal ruling on November 21st, the appeal in the test case brought by CPEP
00:05contractor Eastman Enterprises was dismissed. Eastman had filed for an injunction from the
00:11high court against the termination of its contract and was seeking reinstatement of the contract.
00:17The appeal court found that high court justice Margaret Mohamed was right to state a test case
00:23brought by CPEP contractors on the grounds that they violated a dispute resolution clause in
00:28their contract. The ruling was handed down by Justice of Appeal Peter Rajkumar with agreement
00:33from Justices of Appeal James Abood and Ricky Rahim. Attorneys for Eastman argued that the
00:39contractors were not bound by the dispute resolution clause because of the vagueness of it, adding that
00:45the Arbitration Act under which the clause falls was repealed. But CPEP's lead attorney Anand Ramlogan
00:52senior counsel said that the contract was valid and binding, and as such, the courts were duty-bound
00:58to respect and enforce the alternative dispute resolution process. The appeal court found that
01:04the contractors did not attempt to seek redress by way of the dispute resolution process, nor did they
01:10seek mediation, and instead proceeded to arbitration. According to CPEP, the court said, quote,
01:16it defeated the very purpose of that procedure to ignore and bypass the process, which had been
01:22designed to attempt to resolve disputes by instead immediately approaching the court, end quote. The
01:29court said that the urgent interim relief the contractors was seeking through the court ignored that such a
01:36relief could have been had through the dispute resolution process, and the contractors attempted to
01:41bypass that process entirely. The court said that it could not justify ignoring that process based upon
01:48any alleged inability to obtain such relief except through the court. However, the court of appeal held
01:54that the referring of the matter by Justice Mohammed to the director of public prosecution to see if it
02:00warranted a criminal investigation was premature. In August of 2025, Eastman also lost its appeal to have the
02:08matter heard on an urgent basis before the court. Justice Nolan Barrow stated that the matter did not meet
02:14the level of urgency required for priority ahead of other matters before the court at that time.
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