Gold mining licence sale ruled fraud

Press, 9 October 1987, Page 41

Gold mining licence sale ruled fraud

PA Dunedin A finding of fraud against a man selling a goldmining licence over part of the Shotover River has, led to a High Court judgment awarding $300,000 damages to the company buying the licence. Shotover Mining, Ltd, a Christchurch-based company brought the action against a Kelso engineer, Laurence Robert Aitken Brownlie, under the Contractual Remedies , Act, 1979, and the Contractual Mistakes Act, 1977. The company sought

damages of $656,926 from Mr Brownlie for loss of profits from the mining claim. The company was disappointed in the volume of gravel available for mining. Mr Brownlie complained that the company had not made two final instalment payments due, and he counter-claimed to recover those payments. The case was heard by Mr Justice McGechan over 16 days, the first five in the High Court at Dunedin in June, and the remainder in the High Court at Invercargill in

July and August. In the prologue to his 193-page reserved decision, just released, his Honour said that while the dispute arose in the context of modern times and laws, and the latest mechanised alluvial gold recovery methods, “the issues in the end differ very little from those which must have occupied the minds of the Warden’s Courts of Central Otago at a time when this country was still very young. “Gold and human nature change very little with the passage of time,” he said.