LPG distributors demand protection from unfair measures by regulator

A court has temporarily upheld an application for a warrant of prohibitory injunction to be issued against the Malta Resources Authority, preventing it from suspending the distribution licences of seven LPG distributors.

Earlier today, lawyers Robert Abela, Ian Borg and Albert Zerafa filed an application for a warrant of prohibitory injunction in the First Hall of the Civil Court against Malta Gas Distributors Limited, in response to a letter received from the Energy and Water Services regulator, which notified them that an inspection would be carried out the following day and which threatened to suspend the licences of distributors whose trucks bore the “colour scheme and/or stickers of one of the LPG suppliers.”

The application alleges that the letter was sent for the sole purpose of “sating a third party who has private economic interests in the sale of LPG,” which it was trying to achieve through an abuse of the Authority’s powers.

It highlights the absence of a condition prohibiting the plaintiffs from using stickers belonging to one company or another on their trucks.

“The Authority cannot simply decide to suspend a licence in the manner which it is describing, particularly when the aim is not a genuine one...but one where the Authority is being manipulated and used for improper purposes.”

It warns that suspending the licenses will result in people and families losing their livelihoods.

“The plaintiffs’ only so-called shortcoming was that they never succumbed to the pressure exerted by the third party regarding the manner in which they were to distribute gas supplies, and instead had always insisted to be fully in conformity with the obligations emerging from their licence.”

The Authority, instead of protecting the interests of the free market and of the consumer, is instead only interested in helping third parties’ economic interests and interfering in areas where it should not, they said.

The plaintiffs say that they are being punished in return for their observance of the law.