Supreme Court halts FTC rebar market report against Tank-Weld pending appeal

KINGSTON, Jamaica — The Fair Trading Commission (FTC) has run into another stumbling block in its long-running clash with TW Metals Limited, with the Supreme Court ordering that the regulator's contentious findings on the local rebar market be placed on ice while an appeal works its way through the courts.

Well-placed sources told this newsroom that on April 28, the Commercial Division of the Supreme Court, sitting before Mr Justice Batts, granted Tank-Weld injunctive relief. The order bars the FTC from acting on or pushing forward with its conclusions against the steel distributor until the appeal is decided.

At the centre of the dispute is an FTC report that accused Tank-Weld of leveraging a dominant position in the reinforcing steel bar (rebar) trade by allegedly pricing its product below cost. The probe was triggered by a complaint from rival firm ARC Manufacturing Limited.

Under the terms of the injunction, the commission's decision "shall not be acted upon" by either the FTC or ARC Manufacturing while the appeal remains live. The court additionally suspended any follow-on or planned proceedings flowing from the decision and barred both sides from circulating or publishing the report.

The judge cautioned that breaching the order could leave FTC Executive Director David Miller, among others, exposed to contempt of court action.

Legal watchers describe the ruling as a meaningful interim win for Tank-Weld and say it casts new doubt on the robustness of the FTC's case as well as how the matter has been managed overall.

Tank-Weld has steadily argued that the regulator's conclusions rest on flawed figures, significant calculation mistakes and a process that shut the company out of basic procedural fairness. The firm has pledged to push back hard against the report in the Supreme Court, insisting that its longstanding low-price approach is a product of operational efficiency and a benefit to consumers rather than anti-competitive behaviour.

The row has also spilled into wider public conversation, with a number of economists and private sector figures asking whether it is appropriate to punish a business for offering low prices in what is supposed to be an open, competitive marketplace.