BREACH OF COUPON ACT

Evening Post, Volume CXIV, Issue 91, 14 October 1932, Page 10

BREACH OF COUPON ACT

FIKST PKOSECUTION

RHYMING COMPETITION

The conditions under which a "missing word" competition was run by Smith's Potato Crisps (N.Z.), Ltd., were held by Mr. E. Page, S.M., at the Magistrate's Court to-day to constitute a breach^ of the Trading Coupons Act. 1931. A'fine of i£s was imposed.

The Assistant Crown Prosecutor, Mr. C. Evans-Scott said that the prosecution was the first of its kind in New Zealand and was looked on as more or less in the nature of a test case. The matter was not looked upon lightly, however, as similar offences were being committed or about to be committed throughout the country. The case was brought as a Tesult of a competition held by the defendants in August last. Competitors were invited to fill in certain missing words in an adaptation of some well-known nursery rhymes. Each competitor could send in as many solutions as he chose, but with each solution it was necessary for him to forward two empty covers from packets of Smith's Potato Crisps. One hundred prizes were offered, the first of which was a sisvalve radio set valued at £28. MAGISTRATE'S COMMENTS. In a reserved judgment Mr. Page said that it seemed to him that the covers were trading coupons within the meaning of the Act. The possession of two of them entitled the holder to a benefit, namely the chance of winning one of the prizes in the competition. "It is true," said Mr. Page, "that in order to entitle the holder to such benefit something more than, the mere production of the covers is necessary. He must also supply his solution of the missing word competition. The definition, however, seems to me to include such a case, for it refers to any cover or package which 'by itself or ... with any other act or thing' entitles the holder to any benefit. Haying regard to the scope and object of the Statute, I think that the solution of a competition, amounts to some 'other act or thing' within the meaning of the definition."

Mr. Page thought that by accepting the two covers, accompanied by a solution of the competition, the defendants had "redeemed" the coupons and that as such redemption was not for money a breach of the Statute had been committed.