Six freeze prosecutions completed

Press, 3 February 1984, Page 3

Six freeze prosecutions completed

PA Wellington The Trade and Industry Department has successfully prosecuted only six traders for breaches of the price freeze since it was imposed 19 months ago.

In that time, there have been 7889 complaints to the department about price rises.

A director of commerce in charge of enforcement, Mr David Schroff, said yesterday that of those, 1137 rises were found not to be in order. Most of those cases had not resulted in prosecutions. He said the department had followed Government policy of seeking compliance with the freeze from traders, and consequently only 11 cases had gone to court.

Of those, five cases had been dismissed. Mr Schroff said the freeze had been to ensure traders complied with the freeze

regulations. If the department had prosecuted every time, the court system would have been clogged and a lot of department staff would have been tied up gathering evidence rather than ensuring that the freeze was working.

He said the firms which had been found by courts to have breached the freeze were the Farmers Trading Company (Auckland), Tawa Meats (Wellington), Woolworths N.Z., Ltd (Auckland), Foodstuffs Otago Southland, Ltd (Dunedin), Milestone Photos Australia, Ltd (Christchurch), and No Frills Food Barn (Auckland).

He understood that two of those cases may still be the subject of appeals. Mr Schroff said instructions to proceed against three others were being issued. The price freeze will end on February 29.