Company Fined £375 For Price Control Breaches

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27367, 4 June 1954, Page 13

Company Fined £375 For Price Control Breaches

Perry’s Shoes, Ltd., was fined a total of £375 by Mr Rex. C. Abernethy, S.M., in the Magistrate’s Court yesterday; this being £75 on each of five charges of selling shoes to retailers when an order prohibiting the sale of. such shoes was in force. ■pie question of penalty had been adjourned from Wednesday when the Magistrate suggested to Clifford Keith Perry, managing director of the defendant company, that he obtain counsel to appear for the company. Mr W. K. L. Dougall appeared for the Director of Price Control.

Mr E. S. Bowie appeared yesterday on behalf of the defendant company. The Magistrate told him he should know the position, and then outlined the happenings in the Court on Wednesday.

Mr Bowie said he had been instructed to proffer an unqualified apology from Perry and to assure the Court that no disrespect was intended to the Court and certainly no contempt of Court was in Perry’s mind. The motive of a defendant was a material factor for the Court to examine in considering a penalty, said Mr Bowie. There had been cases in the past where a defendant considered that his only remedy for an injustice lay in provoking a prosecution. There were many examples of that in history. The defendant company had 58 shareholders and a board of three directors, Clifford Keith Perry being managing director, said Mr Bowie. Acting on instructions from the board of directors, Perry placed submission* before the Court on Wednesday and the Court held them to be irrelevant. Perry and his company had the greatest respect for the Court and for the law. The motive of the company was to protest at the departmental administration of the law r on the statutes book, said Mr Bowie. Perry and the company took the view’ that if the company had to sell shoes at the price approved by the Price Tribunal it would have to go into liquidation. Perry had acted in protest at that. Though the Court was not the place to canvass such' a protest, the company had tried every available remedy without result and had been driven to a form of passive resistance. Mr Bowie said he had learned earlier in the morning that the original 5J per cent, mark-up on many types of shoes had been raised to 7 per cent. Perry

said that had he knbwn this he wouldhave made application to the Frice Tribunal and would do so now. The motive for the company’s conduct arose from a desire for self-preserva-tion and the Court should give weight to this motive when imposing the. penalties. The Magistrate: Has the managing director undertaken to accept the price Tribunal ruling on his future applications or not?

Mr Bowie asked leave to Consult Perry, *who was sitting in the public seating. There was some discussion, eventually interrupted by the Magistrate saying: “The answer is yes or no, Mr Bowie.” « Mr Bowie said he was having some difficulty. Perry had said to him that, if the Price Tribunal approved his application at a price the company could operate on, he would accept it, but if it was not approved at such a price he would have to consider the interests of his company. Magistrate’s Comment “I am Very glad indeed that the company is represented by counsel this morning because if the managing director had appeared fn person and not made the full apology tendered by counsel the Court would have been compelled to consider imposing the maximum penalty of £500,” said the Magistrate. “The Court cannot and will not be defied. But the Court will allow as great a concession as is reasonably possible to any defendant appearing in person before the Court. But there is a limit—and that must be understood.”

The Magistrate said the making of an application to the Price Tribunal in the proper way would materially affect his decision, but he regretted he had not received a yes or no on whether the company would accept the Price Tribunal ruling. “If application is made and the company does not comply with the law by accepting the de r cision of the Price Tribunal the company unquestionably will find itself in a position where something near the maximum fine, if not the maximum, will have to be imposed,” said the Magistrate. “This is the fifth or sixth time the company has been before the Court and whether the company will bankrupt itself unfortunately cannot be a matter to deter the Court front’ saying: ‘You have defied the law and must take the consequences,’ ” the Magistrate said.