Forty companies are holding the government liable for damages for failing to implement a 2008 legal notice which exempts them from paying eco tax, given that they recover the waste they put on the market.

In a protest filed against the resources and finance ministries respectively, the companies complained that the 2008 legal notice, regulating exemptions from eco contribution for companies that take part in a waste recovery scheme, had not yet been enacted.

The companies have only recently been asked to pay their eco contributions for 2009, which they were meant to be exempt from because they had taken part in a recovery scheme operated by Green Dot Malta Limited under the name GreenPak.

Last July, the government had issued another legal notice which said that for an exemption from payment, producers had to file a form. But the companies said this form had not even been created yet.

They were forced to pay the tax because of the penalties they would face, they said, insisting that this cost them money unnecessarily and undermined their legal rights.

The protest called on the government to make good the damages they had sustained and implement the exemption scheme.

Lawyer Albert Grech signed the protest.

Meanwhile, the Chamber of Commerce, Enterprise and Industry supported the action and referred to previous statements it had issued highlighting the frustration among the private sector.