So­ca artiste Sean Caruth has scored a ma­jor le­gal vic­to­ry in his bid to hold the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) li­able for the unau­tho­rised use of his 2001 hit The Cook (Coal Pot) in a tele­vi­sion com­mer­cial for its Blue Food Fes­ti­val.

De­liv­er­ing a judg­ment on Mon­day, ap­pel­late judges Gillian Lucky, Mi­ra Dean-Ar­mor­er, and Vasheist Kokaram ruled that High Court Judge Frank Seep­er­sad erred when he re­ject­ed Caruth’s copy­right in­fringe­ment case in Ju­ly 2018.

Jus­tice Dean-Ar­mor­er, who wrote the judg­ment, said, “We held that the tri­al judge was plain­ly wrong to have dis­missed the ap­pel­lant’s claim and the THA had in­fringed the neigh­bour­ing and moral rights of the ap­pel­lant.”