AGENT OR PURCHASER?

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 51, 23 November 1929, Page 12

AGENT OR PURCHASER?

CHIEF JUSTICE TO DECIDE. An action brought by the Gannow Engineering Company, Ltd., of Manchester, England, against Frederick Richardson, of Wellington, was partly heard before the Chief Justice (Hon. M. Myers) in the Supreme Court on Thursday and was concluded yesterday. Mr. L. Wilson appeared for plaintiff and Mr. R. H. Boys for defendant. , The company claimed that defendant, as its agent, received and sold in New Zealand a granulator and parts to the value of £ 655/17/6 and had not accounted to it for the sale price. Plaintiff further claimed that during the last four years he, as its agent, had sold other granulator machines for it at a price in excess of the proper selling price and had not accounted to it for this surplus. The statement of defence admitted the receipt and sale of tiie goods, but claimed that defendant was entitled to a discount or rebate of 10 per cent, on all machines of plaintiff’s manufacture sold in New Zealand in terms of an agreement entered into between the parties, and, further, that defendant acted throughout the transactions as purchaser of the machines in question and was therefore under no obligation to account to plaintiff for any price obtained by him in excess of the price at which he received the goods from plaintiff. - Furthermore, defendant contended that he had never at any time been credited with his 10 per cent, commission by plaintiff, and that there was now no sum of money due by him to plaintiff. After hearing lengthy evidence as to the correspondence which 'had passed between the parties over many years, His Honour reserved his judgment on the question of whether the defendant was agent or purchaser