"GROSS NEGLECT."

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 236, 5 October 1937, Page 10

"GROSS NEGLECT."

DAIRY COMPANY FINED.

RETURNS NOT FURNISHED. (From Our Correspondent.) XAPIER, Monday. Sharp criticism of the action of a dairy company in failing to notify its change of address, and failing to provide copies of its annual returns, wae made in the Napier Magistrate's Court this morning, when the Nuhaka Cooperative Dairy Company, Limited, and its secretary, were charged with breaches of the Companies Act. The deputy-registrar of companies at Napier, Mr. R. F. Baird, described the caee as one of the worst he had encountered.

Mr. J. Miller, S.M., was on the Bench, and Mr. H. B. Lusk prosecuted, while Mr. H. W. Dowling appeared for defendants.

Mr. Baird said that a-s far back as January the company was informed that notice of its change of address was required, but it had not been returned until this morning.

Mr. Dowling said he had been instructed from Wairoa that the failure to furnish the returns had been due to an oversight. He entered a plea of not guilty to the charge against the secretary of not notifying the change of address, as the office had been changed about 15 years ago, and the present secretary had been in office only five years. Although he had continued the breach, he had not originally committed it.

The magistrate contended that the case was one of deliberate and gross neglect for a long period. It was one of the first in the district.

A fine of £2 was imposed in each case.