Barbara Gayle, Staff Reporter

The four leading oil companies scored a major victory yesterday when the Judicial Review Court quashed the regulations stipulating the method by which fuel should be measured and the type of equipment to be used.

The Bureau of Standards has also been barred from implementing the regulations.

The Minister of Commerce, Science and Technology had passed the regulations in 2004 under the Weight and Measures Act of 1976.

They were passed following complaints by some members of the Jamaica Gasolene Retailers' Association that they were suffering losses due to shrinkage caused by temperature changes from the point of delivery to the point when gasolene was received for storage.

Claimants Texaco, Esso, Total and Cool Petroleum took the matter to the Supreme Court, challenging the regulations on the grounds that they were unlawful.

Attorneys-at-law Georgia Gibson Henlin and Catherine Minto, who were instructed by the firm Nunes, Scholefield, DeLeon and Co., argued that the Act imposed a mandatory duty on the minister to publish the draft regulations and to consider recommendations made to him.

They submitted that the minister failed to publish the draft regulations and that was unlawful.

Host of hindrances

It was also the companies' contention that the regulations would impose technical and administrative difficulties on them and they were not consulted before they were passed. They said the regulations were intended to benefit the retailers and there was no mechanism whereby the benefits being passed to retailers would also be passed on to consumers.

Government lawyer Curtis Cochrane, who represented the minister and the Bureau of Standards, had asked the court to find that the regulations were valid.

Senior Puisne Judge Marva McIntosh, Justice Horace Marsh and Mr. Justice Roy Anderson will give their reasons in writing at a later date.

barbara.gayle@gleanerjm.com