The Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) has suf­fered a ma­jor blow to its bid to chal­lenge the ter­mi­na­tion of over 300 Com­mu­ni­ty-based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme Com­pa­ny (CEPEP) con­trac­tors.

De­liv­er­ing a 25-page rul­ing a short while ago, Jus­tice Mar­garet Mo­hammed up­held an ap­pli­ca­tion from CEPEP's lawyers led by Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC, of Free­dom Law Cham­bers, to stay the case.

Jus­tice Mo­hammed found mer­its in CEPEP's claim that Laven­tille-based gen­er­al con­tract­ing com­pa­ny East­man En­ter­prise Lim­it­ed rushed to file the law­suit when a clause in its con­tract pro­vid­ed for me­di­a­tion and ar­bi­tra­tion be­fore lit­i­ga­tion.