Tank-Weld gets green light for judicial review of FTC finding

Tank-Weld gets green light for judicial review of FTC finding A Supreme Court judge on Tuesday granted Tank-Weld Metals Limited leave to apply for judicial review of the decision of the Fair Trading Commission (FTC) to accept, adopt, and/or endorse an August 2025 Staff Report by competitor Arc Manufacturing Limited alleging unfair pricing practices relating to steel reinforcing bars, better known as rebar. Acting Supreme Court Justice Sharon Millwood-Moore, after hearing the application by Tank-Weld for judicial review and injunctive relief, granted the entity: (a) An Order of Certiorari to quash the decision of the FTC to accept, adopt, and/or endorse the August 2025 Staff Report b) An Order of Prohibition restraining the FTC from publishing, or further publishing, or from otherwise acting on its decisions set forth in its two letters to the applicant’s attorney-at-law (Hart Muirhead Fatta), dated March 23, 2026, to accept the said staff report. Tank-Weld has also been given leave by the court to seek an Order of Mandamus directed to the FTC to compel it to withdraw the staff report and its decision to accept that report.

The court also allowed Tank-Weld to seek an order to remove the staff report and its decision from any electronic medium on which they might have been placed.

In addition Tank-Weld has been approved to seek an Order of Mandamus to have the FTC proceed with proper investigation as required by the Fair Competition Act and general principles of law. Leave was further granted to Tank-Weld in the application for judicial review to have the court order that the FTC’s Preliminary Report and the August 2025 Staff Report “not be unsealed excepting by and pursuant to an order of the court”. Justice Millwood-Moore also ruled that the application for judicial review is to be filed and served within 14 days of the court’s order and that any intended application in respect of transfer of the related matter is to be filed and served in order to be heard on April 23, 2026, the date previously fixed by the Commercial Court.

On April 2 the commercial division of the Supreme Court placed a hold on any action regarding the FTC’s investigation into allegations against Tank-Weld by competitor ARC Manufacturing. The commercial division of the court stated that the decision of the FTC, dated March 2026, should not remain in force or be acted on “until the inter parties hearing or further order of the court”. In a news release on Tuesday, Tank-Weld said the court’s decision, “provides important protection for ordinary Jamaican families, builders and contractors from the immediate risk of higher building costs”.

The company said that for 35 years it “has kept rebar and other building materials affordable for Jamaican families, builders, and contractors in a completely open market where rebar can be imported duty-free from anywhere in the world, making any uncompetitive high pricing impossible”.