Car Firm Guilty Of Currency Offences

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32215, 6 February 1970, Page 22

Car Firm Guilty Of Currency Offences

(New Zealand Press Association) TAURANGA, February 5. Fines and costs totalling $2293 were imposed on Stanton Motors, Ltd, Tauranga, when it was convicted in the Tauranga Magistrate’s Court today on 28 illegal currency offences.

Feodor Stanton, manager of the company, was convicted and discharged on 28 charges of being a party to transactions involving currency dealing carried out by Stanton Motors.

seas funds coming into New Zealand.” the Magistrate said. But is was not certain whether all or any of those funds would have come back into the country, he said. Feodor Stanton, as managing director of Stanton Motors, had been rightly charged as a party to the offences. But he had carried out the transactions on behalf of his company, and there was really only one offence. To impose penalties on Stanton would be to inflict I two penalties for the one offence, the Magistrate said.

Mr B. S. Barry, S.M., fined Stanton Motors a total of $1895, court costs a total of $l4O, and ordered the firm to pay a total of $258 in solicitors’ fees. The Magistrate heard the case yesterday and reserved his decision until today. The charges were laid; under the Exchange Control Regulations and Sections of the Reserve Bank of New Zea-i, land Act. The defendant' company and Stanton both pleaded guilty to all charges. The Magistrate said the illegal transactions had upset the economy of New Zealand and were operated on a wide scale. It was clear that the defendants had not made any profit on the sale of currency and any benefit; came from the fact that the! defendants were able to import more motor cars. Defence counsel had established that there had been no great profit made from the dealings and, in some cases, there had been a loss. The defendants should receive the benefit of any doubt in fixing of penalities and arriving at convictions. “I should deal with these] cases not as transactions| which yielded a lucrative pro-i fit but as transactions which might have prevented over-1,