ONEKAKA CASE

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 25030, 12 November 1946, Page 3

ONEKAKA CASE

COMPENSATION CLAIMS (P.A.) WELLINGTON, November 11. Three compensation claims against the Crown by steel companies for losses of mining privileges and property rights alleged to result from the passing of the Iron and Steel Industry Act, 1937, entered the second week of their hearing in the Supreme Court before Mr Justice Blair and six assessors to-day, sitting as a Compensation Court. After evidence by Arthur Allan Solomon, public accountant, of Timaru, the case for Pacific Steel, Ltd., was closed. Mr W. J. Sim, K.C., reserving the right to address the Court after the claims of the Onekaka Company and Golden Bay Proprietary, Ltd., had been heard. The case for the liquidators of the Onekaka Iron and Steel Company, Ltd. (in liquidation), and the receivers for its debenture holders, who are claiming £148,550, plus interest, or alternatively £200,000. was next taken. In opening the case, Mr P. B. Cooke, K.C., who has with him Mr D. R. Hoggard, said his clients’ claims were for £148,550, plus interest, less £1450 which Pacific Steel had paid as option money, and £4OOO, the value of the slag rights, which had not been taken away by the Government. Among matters decided by the Court of Appeal which were conclusively against the Government in the present case, he said, were: (a) from the date of the Brassert report in 1935 onward, the Onekaka Company never had from the Government the assistance in disposing of assets which it was entitled to expect under the 1931 compromise; (b) from January, 1936, onward, attempts to sell were frustrated by fear of Government policy, which the Government had created by its statements of what it had under consideration, and what it might decide, and nothing was said by the Government to remove this fear. Onekaka claimed that it had assets worth £150,000, whether Pacific Steel existed or not. Apart from the slag rights the Government acquired substantially all that Onekaka offered in its sale to Pacific Steel. The Government had also taken a large quantity of plant, not Compulsorily but from the receivers. He understood that the Solicitor-General agreed that compensation should be awarded for this plant. The hearing will be continued tomorrow.