Lamp Inquiry Adjourned

Press, Volume C, Issue 29582, 3 August 1961, Page 17

Lamp Inquiry Adjourned

(New Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, August 2. The Trade Practices and Prices Commission this afternoon adjourned an inquiry into the distribution of lamps made by New Zealand Electric Lamp Manufacturers, Ltd., until August 15. The chairman of the commissicn (Mt S. T. Barnett) said the commission had conferred in chambers with counsel in the case and had invited them to confer further. To allow them to do that the hearing would be adjourned. The other commission members were Mr R. D. Christie and Mr F. F. Simmons.

In a report, which came before the commission earlier in the hearing, the acting commissioner (Mr R. G. Hampton) recommended that the firms distributing domestic electric lamps made at the Miramar factory be ordered to stop maintaining prices, discounts and other conditions of sale. Mr W G. Smith appeared for 15 firms named in the report as parties' to the distributing agreement and Mr G. S. Ogr appeared for the commissioner. Mr Smith submitted that after an extensive perusal of he records of the distributors

he represented, there was no evidence of harmful, restrictive or unfair practices. He did not consider the evidence before the commission justified any interference with what had proved to be a satisfactory marketing scheme. The electric lamp industry was an established one in New Zealand and any economies achieved had been passed on to the consumer by way of lower prices. If ever there was a product that should have a uniform price, it was these lamps, because they all came from the one source and were the same 'amps. Two main questions faced the commission, Mr Smith said. The first was whether a collective agreement existed and the second was whether the conditions of individual resale price maintenance agreement® should be acknowledged to be in the public interest or not. On the first he said he had already brought evidence forward to show that no collective agreement existed. On the second hfe considered it was impossible for the commission to come to a decision with its present state of knowledge. On the question of whether an agreement between the shareholders erf a lamp fac-

tory, and the distributors unreasonably reduced competition, Mr Smith submitted this could only be decided against the whole background of the national economy. The uniformity of prices generally would have to be considered by the commission. Why should lamps be treated any differently from cars for instance? What evidence was there on which the commission could say that in the lamp industry resale price maintenance wasi against the public interest. | It seemed to him that R. might be advisable before] reaching a decision on an individual case of price maintenance for the commission to hold a general inquiry on the subject, so that it could decide what its general opinion was going to be. One must acknowledge that every resale price maintenance agreement limited competition at the retail level If on that ground, and that ground alone, the commission were to allow that resale price maintenance agreements were against publie interest then every such agreement in the country was against public intereat Mr Smith suggested this could not. be so. and competition must be looked at on a broader basis.