AN ALLEGED TRUST.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 1045, 18 May 1912, Page 4

AN ALLEGED TRUST.

ACTION BY THE GOVERN-

MENT

AN IMPORTANT DEVELOPMENT.

The first case under the New Zealand Commercial Trusts Act ot 1910, is likely to come on for hearing at the next sitting of the Supreme Court in Wellington. Information was laid against the Colonial Sugar Refining Company last February, charging it with having committed a breach of the Act, which renders any person or firm liable to a fine of ,£SOO if it enters into a conspiracy to monopolise, wholly or partially, the demand or supply of any goods in New Zealand it such a monopoly is against the public interest. It is alleged that the Colonial Sugar Company gave preferential terms to a group of merchants, and that a table of discounts was in existence under which only purchasers of unusually large quantities of sugar could obtain benefit. The Merchants’ Association of New Zealand has been joined with the Sugar Company as defendants. There are over fifty members of this Association, but as a test of the individual position of all these members the Crown has selected of their number leading Wellington wholesalers : Messrs Levin and Co., W M. Bauuatyne and Co., and Joseph Nathan and Co., for prosecution.

Under the same law the Supreme Court has just granted what is technically termed "au older lor discovery - ’ against the defendants. This is an exceedingly important step, as it gives the Crown power to examine the documents of the firms, including their correspondence relating to the purchase and sale ot the commodity alleged to be the subject of a monopoly arrangement.