CEDRIC and Carlene Salmon, operators of the Shell dealership at 33 Upper Waterloo Road in Kingston, have obtained a court injunction against the termination of their contract with the multinational petroleum marketing company.

On Tuesday, Shell told the Salmons that their contract was being terminated, but the couple is protesting the move on the grounds that they have not been offered meaningful compensation for the 22 years of service they have provided to Shell and its customers.

The court has ordered a 14-day injunction during which there will be a hearing between the parties to the dispute.

Yesterday, Shell expressed a desire to arrive at an amicable agreement.

“Shell is always desirous of arriving at amicable resolutions for which we have had open dialogue with Mr Cedric Salmon to address the current situation regarding the termination of his dealership at 33 Upper Waterloo Avenue,” said a statement from Shell country chairman, Mario Vulinovich.

While Shell did not supply a reason for the termination of the contract, L G Brown, president of the Jamaica Gasoline Retailers Association (JGRA), attempted to shed some light on the issue.

“The reason being given by Shell for terminating the contract with the Salmons is that they have received returned cheques,” he told the Observer. “But we know that it is the discriminatory and predatory pricing practices being employed by the multinational marketing companies that have undermined the viability of independent dealers such as the Salmons… Shell has engineered this situation.”

Brown described the Salmons’ termination package as “ridiculous and nowhere near accepted practice”. He said that the generally accepted formula for goodwill payment by the marketing company to dealers in such cases, is for the company to offer “approximately one year of gross margin earnings”.

Shell’s offer to the Salmons, Brown said, was “nowhere near a figure of the annual gross margin”, even though there are local precedents to show that Shell has abided by that principle in the past.

“It seems clear that what Shell is doing is trying to ‘get out’ the Salmons before the code of conduct between the marketing companies and the gasolene retailers is agreed to and signed,” Brown said. “They are hurrying to ‘get out’ the Salmons because under the code of conduct they will not be able to act with such ruthlessness.”

But Vulinovich claimed in his statement that his company “has always conducted its business based on its business principles and observing the Jamaican laws”.

“It is important to also highlight that Shell never takes decisions lightly in terms of terminating contracts,” the statement said. “Shell’s actions in relation to the operations of its service stations are made with the intention to ensure that these meet the highest international standards in customer service and safety.”

Yesterday, the Salmons were unwilling to discuss their dispute with Shell as the matter is now before the court.

“You know that once we have taken legal action we can’t really make any comment on it, but I suggest you let the president of the JGRA to speak on it because the matter is now before the court and the minister,” Carlene Salmon told the Observer.

In an earlier interview with the Salmons this year, when Shell had threatened termination of their contract, she had insisted that it was “Shell’s immoral and unethical business practices which are at the root of the problems private retailers have been experiencing in meeting their costs, including payments to the marketing company”.

She also said that on November 26 last year, Shell’s area retail territory sales manager, Reidar Karlsrud, had assured her that they would be adequately compensated in the event of termination.

“Karlsrud gave his verbal agreement that should there be any termination a ‘goodwill’ compensation would be made to us to pay debts and make final payments to workers, but now they are going back on their word,” she said then.

Yesterday, the JGRA issued a release calling on minister of commerce, science and technology, Phillip Paulwell, “to speedily formalise the agreed code of conduct to regulate the relationship between marketing companies and the gasolene retailers”.

The JGRA president told the Observer that other private gasolene retailers are viewing the experience of the Salmons as a warning. Brown said that an agreement was made between the JGRA, the marketing companies and Minister Paulwell that “no terminations would take place until a code of conduct for all players in the industry was formulated and agreed on”.

Brown said he “condemned Shell’s termination of the Salmons’ contract after being party to such an agreement”.