Philippines: Petron Corp Requests End to RTC Enquiry
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Wednesday, 23 September 2009 |
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Petron Corp. has asked the Supreme Court to permanently stop the
Regional Trial Court in Manila from scrutinizing its book of accounts
to determine possible violation of the provisions of Republic Act 8479,
or the Downstream Oil Industry Deregulation Act of 1998, which prohibit
monopoly, predatory pricing and cartelization.
In a 61-page petition for certiorari with prayer for the issuance of
a temporary restraining order or writ of preliminary injunction or
both, Petron through its lawyer, Gener Asuncion, asked the Court to
nullify the orders issued by Judge Silvino Pamfilo of the RTC in Manila
on April 27, 2009, granting the motion filed by the Social Justice
Society (SJS) for the opening and examination of its books of account,
as well that of Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corp. and Chevron Philippines.
Petron argued that Pamfilo committed grave abuse of discretion when he
denied its motion to dismiss SJS petition despite that the Department
of Justice-Department of Energy Joint Task Force, to which he
previously referred the case for disposition, has already ruled that
the three big oil firms were not guilty of monopoly, cartelization and
predatory pricing.
The oil company maintained that the duty to investigate oil companies
for possible violation of the provisions of the Oil Deregulation Act
belongs exclusively to the DOJ-DOE Joint Task Force under Section 13 of
the said law. The said provision states that alleged violation of
Section 11, or the Antitrust Safeguards under the Oil Deregulation Act,
should be reported by any person or entity to the joint task force.
Petron said it was puzzled why the lower court would have to refer the
case to DOJ-DOE Joint Task Force when it would just disregard its
findings issued on April 17, 2008. “Having recognized the DOJ-DOE
Joint Task Force’s primary responsibility, was it not then proper to
dismiss the SJS petition for lack of cause of action after the DOJ-DOE
Joint Task Force investigated and found that there was no monopoly,
combination in restraint of trade or cartelization committed by Petron,
Shell and Chevron?” the petitioner said.
Chevron Philippines Inc. has earlier filed a similar petition before
the Court. Chevron, through its lawyer Ariel Abonal, insisted the
Court has no jurisdiction to investigate the alleged overpricing of oil
products.
PetrolWorld 210909
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