The Harper Bankruptcy.

Feilding Star, Volume XVI, Issue 5, 6 July 1894, Page 2

The Harper Bankruptcy.

■«. THE BANK MANAGER'S STATEMENT. (MB FBBSS ASSOCIATION.) Christchubcb, June 5. At a meeting of creditors in the estate of Harper and Co. tbis morning, it was resolved tbat a legal opinion be obtained as to the olaim of the Official Assignee, or i the separate creditors, in respect of the trust funds alledged to have been transferred from tbe firm to tbe Union Bank. A letter from the manager of the Bank to tho Official Assignee contains the following:—(1) In 1886 the firm kept four current accounts with the-: Bank, viz., Nos. 1, 2, and 8 accounts, and an investment account. Some of these accounts were overdrawn, but others were in credit. (2) The following was the position of the respective accounts on the morning of November the 17th, 1886, the day on which the cheque for £81.095 8s 8d was drawn :—Overdrafts—No. 2 account, £24,467 9s 2d ; investment account, £1670 Is 4d : total, £26,137 10s 6d. Credit balances— No 1 account, £1577 14s lOd ; No. 3 acoount, £11,153 4s 3d: total, £12,780 19s Id. Balance, £18,406 lis sd. (3) It will be observed tbat excluding tbe investment account the firm's indebtedness to the Bank on November 17th, 1886, was £11,786 10s Id. The Bank did not demand payment of this amount br any other sum; on the contrary Messrs Harper and Co. were informed they might {continue to overdraw up to the limit of £15,000. They did this and continued to do so, and their indebtedness on the account in question at the date of their bankruptcy, in 1898, was £18,388 3s 2d. (4) The investment ac count on the date on which Messrs Harper and Co closed it by drawing a cheque for £31,095 18s 8d was overdrawn by £1670 ls 4d. Messrs Harper and Co. paid in a fixed deposit for £20,000, also a cheque for £12,866 on their No. 2 account, at the same time they drew a cheque for tbe balance, £31,095 18s Bd, which they paid to tbe credit of No. 2 account.