AN ALLEGED TRUST.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIII, Issue 15, 15 May 1912, Page 8

AN ALLEGED TRUST.

ACTION BY THE GOVERNMENT. AN IMPORTANT DEVELOPMENT. The first case under the New ZcaI 'licl Commercial Trusts Act of 1910, Is likely to come on for hearing at the next sitting of the Supreme Court in Wellington. Information was laic! agamst 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 if such a monopoly is against the public inD rest. 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 largo 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, hut as a fa si of the individual position cf all thesi members the Crown has selected of their number leading Wellington wholesalers: Messrs, Levin and Co.. Win. Bannatyno and Co., and Joseph Nathan and Co., for prosecution. Under the same law the Supreme Court has just granted what is technically termed “an order for discov-

ery” against the defendants. Tlr’s h an exceedingly important step, as if gives the Crown power to examine Cm documents of the firms, including t ; i h correspondence relating to the purchase and sale of the commodity alleged to be the subject of a monopoly arrangement.