Carlisle Tyre company asked to post $25M bond

Carlisle Tyre and Rubber (Free Zone Ltd) is being asked by the Industrial Court to post a bond in the sum of $25 million if the company wants the court to discharge an injunction brought by Labour Minister Lawrence Achong. The Minister has won the first round in an Industrial Court matter with the tyre and rubber company. On the Minister’s application on September 30, 2003, the  Court granted ex-parte, an injunction placing certain restrictions on Carlisle Tyre which is involved in a dispute with its workers. Six weeks later, Carlisle Tyre applied to the court to have the injunction discharged. But in its decision on the company’s application, the court said it would be prepared to discharge the injunction if Carlisle Tyre would provide a bond in the sum of $25 million. It chose $25 million to facilitate damages which the court could award to the workers in the event that it holds that the company dismissed the workers contrary to the provisions of the Industrial Relations Act.

“Our preliminary guess of this figure is $25 million dollars,” said the court. More than 400 workers are involved. The injunction granted was in respect of the allegation by the Minister that Carlisle Tyre had been engaging in industrial action in the form of a lockout of the workers, contrary to the national interest. In granting the injunction, the Industrial Court had limited the assets of the company, and ordered that it be permitted to spend $25,000 per month on reasonable operating expenses. But in applying for relief, the company wanted the court to vary this amount to $325,000, plus all reasonable legal expenses. The company also wanted to be at liberty to enter a bond for the amount of the injunction, and indicated that on such bond being entered or other sufficient security being provided, the said injunction should be dissolved. In an Order on Friday, the court decided that the balance of justice will be served by the injunction being continued in its original terms, except that it was prepared to allow $75,000 to be spent on operating expenses.

In its written decision, the court found that the Minister was acting selflessly in the performance of a public duty directly imposed by statute. “He was not asserting a proprietary claim of the State, but was seeking to enforce the law concerning industrial action in the national interest, and to protect the workers from the horrendous consequences of being without the opportunity of challenging the company’s decision to terminate their employment, thus leaving them without redress in circumstances in which the company had evinced a clear intention to terminate its operations and leave the jurisdiction,” said the court.