LIQUIDATOR'S CLAIM

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 129, 2 June 1936, Page 14

LIQUIDATOR'S CLAIM

SHARE TRANSACTIONS

MCARTHUR AGENT SUED

(By Telegraph—Press Association.)

AUCKLAND, June L

A dispute over the terms on which a Dunedin agent had been employed by a company associated with the McArthur group to purchase shares_in certain other companies resulted in an action for the recovery of amounts totalling £1891 with interest being commenced before Mr. Justice Ostler in the Supreme Court today. The plaintiff was the Transport, Mutual, and General Insurance Company, Limited, in liquidation, and the defendant Cyril Ernie Richard Webber, agent, of DunMr. Hubble for the plaintiff, said the Public Trustee was liquidator of the plaintiff company. The action was really a claim for the balance of moneys received by defendant for which the plaintiff said he had to account. The plaintiff company was one of those associated with the Investment Executive Trust of New Zealand, Limited, new under the control, of the Public Trustee by virtue of two Acts | of Parliament. The defendant admitted receiving the moneys. He said, in fact, that he had accounted for them; that there was no balance owing by him, but that there was a balance owing to him. It was not disputed that the defendant rendered services to the company, but there was a dispute as to the terms of his engagement. It was this that the court was asked to decide. Counsel reviewed the formation of the company. "While this company was incorporated in the ordinary way, it was obviously controlled by the Investment Executive Trust of New Zealand," Mr. Hubble continued. "Its only real activity was the acquiring* of shares, principally in a Dunedin concern, the Trustees, Executors, and Agency Company of New Zealand, Limited, and apparently the plan had been devised by the group of companies known as the McArthur group ■ to acquire control of the Dunedin company. It was in connection with that . activity that the defendant rendered services to the plaintiff company." Mr. Hampson, for the defendant, said i there had never been any desire on • the defendant's part to avoid giving the • fullest account of the money he had ; received, nor was his honesty ques- : tioned. Cyril Ernie Richard Webber, defendi ant, said in January, 3934, he saw Mc- > 1 Arthur and Alcorn and agreed to ac--1 quire shares in two companies for a : salary of £400 a year. This was to : be raised to £1000 a year when 10 3 per cent, of the Dunedin shares had

been obtained. He had done considerable preparatory work ior which he understood he was to receive £500. Subsequently he went to Sydney, where it was agreed to pay hnn £1000 a year. The hearing was adjourned.