INTEREST PAYMENT

Hokitika Guardian, 21 December 1933, Page 5

INTEREST PAYMENT

PRIVY COUNCIL’S DECISION. (Australian Press Association). i SYDNEY, December 20. A London cable message on December 16 stated: “The House of Lords has allowed the appeal against the Appeal Court’s confirmation of Adeaicle Electric Supply Company’s interest payment in London in Australian currency.

Mr Justice Fanvell’s decision was given in the Chancery division. It was to the effect that the holders on the English register of the A. and O. Preference Stocks in the Adelaide Electric Supply Company were entitled to be paid in sterling and not in Australan currency. In April last, the; Court of L\ppeU at London dismissed the appeal or the Adelaide Electric Supply Company against the above judgment o* Justice Harwell, and the case was then carried to the House of Lords by the Company. The decision of the House of Lords is summed up by

a n Adeaide legal authority as placing on tli e stock holders resident in England the burden of tho exchange between Adelaide and London. Those who are entitled to the preference dividend of five pounds per cent., will receive in London only four pounds. When the Engish Court of Appeal gave its judgment, it followed a then recent precedent of its own, known as the Broken Hill Proprietary Deoentura Case. Tt now appears that the Court of Appeal was wrong in its decision on that case, but the Broken Hill Proprietary has abided by it, and possibly it has now lost its right of appeal, anyway. An Adelaide telegram in April last explained that since March, 1931, the Adelaide Electric Supply Company, til., acting on the advice of conns'’!, had paid the dividends to the holders of its preference stock on its London Register by cheques drawn On Adelaide, the effect being ' that the English stock holders had had to pay tho exchange between Adelaide and Loudon.

The Prudential Assurance Company of London, which is a holder of A. nr.l C. preferen , 2 stock on the Comp;]"v’s London Register to the Adelaide Electric Cov., obtained judgment in FeKnmrv last to the effect that it wis titled the payment of its .l’.vi,lend* i tl English currency by the CV’-^vuv.