The Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) has delivered a crucial judgement ruling that the government of Guyana can join with ExxonMobil in its fight against an unlimited parent company guarantee for oil spills.

In delivering this judgement, the CCJ has overruled the decision of Guyana’s Court of Appeal, which had not allowed the Government of Guyana (GoG) to join the fight with ExxonMobil and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) against the unlimited parent company guarantee for oil spills.

The decision was handed down last Tuesday after being heard by Justice A. Saunders, Justice W. Anderson and Justice M. Rajnauth-Lee.

Guyana’s High Court had ruled in favour of public interest litigants, Godfrey Whyte and Frederick Collins on May 3, 2023 for ExxonMobil Guyana formerly Esso Exploration and Production Guyana to provide an unlimited parent company guarantee to protect the nation from costs of an oil spill.

In his judgment, Guyana’s Kaieteur News reports that Justice Kissoon was very clear and had castigated the EPA for abdicating its statutory responsibilities.

According to the High Court judge, the EPA had “relegated itself to state of laxity of enforcement and condonation compounded by a lack of vigilance thereby putting this nation and its people in grave potential danger of calamitous disaster.”

Both the EPA and the oil company had appealed the ruling of High Court Judge, Justice Sandil Kissoon, while the Attorney General (AG) of Guyana, Mohabir Anil Nandlall, who was not initially a party to the case, applied to join the appeal on May 12, 2023.

He was subsequently denied on December 19, 2023. However, on January 31, 2024, the AG petitioned the CCJ to appeal the Court of Appeal’s decision.

During the weekly programme, ‘Issues in the News’ last Tuesday evening, Nandlall explained, “after hearing submissions from all parties on May 13, 2024, not surprisingly, the CCJ reversed and overruled the decision of the Court of Appeal by allowing the Appeal and ordering the Attorney General to be added as a party to the Appeal, which is still pending in the Court of Appeal.”

According to the written ruling of the CCJ, it has been ordered that the Appellant be added as a party to Civil the Appeal No. 67 of 2023.

The AG argued that since the GoG is a party to the 2016 Production Sharing Agreement (PSA) with ExxonMobil, the operator of Guyana’s Stabroek Block, the State should have been added to the appeal.

“We also explained in great detail that the Attorney General represents the public good and the public’s interest. This is one of the most important contracts ever executed in the history of this country to which the government is a party and from which the government is getting hundreds of millions of dollars annually which the government is using to finance its budget and to execute transformational projects for the benefit of the citizens of this country and that the Attorney General protects the public’s interest in law,” Nandlall posited following the ruling.

He pointed out that the government will now apply to the Appeal Court to be added to the matter.