SALE OF SHARES

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 41, 18 February 1937, Page 11

SALE OF SHARES

"HAWKING" ALLEGED

MEANING OF THE ACT

VISITS TO HOUSES

(By Telegraph—Press Association.)

CHRISTCHURCH, This Day

The trial of Osmond Arthur Bridgewater on eleven charges of "sharehawking" commenced in the Supreme Court this morning. In each case the text of the charge was that he went from house to house offering for subscription or purchase to members of the public shares in the Australasian Investment- Corporation, Ltd.

Mr. Justice Northcroft presided and the prosecutor was Mr. W. R. Lascelles. The accused was represented by Mr. H. F. O'Leary, K.C., of Wellington, with him Mr. D. W. Russell. ■

Mr. Lascelles directed the attention of the jury to that section of the Companies Act, 1933, under which the charges were laid. It read: "It shall not be lawful for any .person to go from house to house offering shares for subscription or purchase to the public or any member of the public." That, said Mr. Lascelles, did not apply to places of business or to shares in dairy co-operative companies and the shares of other co-operative concerns. All the people visited by Bridgewater, he continued, had previously acquired debentures in the Investment Executive Trust of New. Zealand, Lty. There was a link between that company and the Australasian Investment Corporation, disclosed in the prospectus of the Australasian Investment Corporation Company, in which the accused was interested. That company had as one of its objects the acquisition of the debentures of the Investment Executive Trust of New Zealand, Ltd. It might be submitted, said Mr. Lascelles, that "house-to-house" had _ a limited meaning and would be applicable only in such a case as that of a hawker who would actually go from house to house right along a street. The Crown maintained that no such harrow interpretation could be placed upon the wording of the Act. It was maintained that the accused, in visiting one or two people a day, as he did, at their homes, was guilty of going from house to house and offering shares for subscription or purchase. In fairness, it had to be said that the accused had previous 'business dealings with the people concerned. John Harrison .Campbell, a retired grocer, said in evidence that he had bought some £10 debentures in the Investment Executive Trust, the transaction being completed in Bridgewater's office in July. The accused visited the witness's house at Cashmere View Street, and induced him to transfer his interest in the Investment Executive Trust for shares in the Australasian Investment Corporation. Witness had riot asked Bridgewater to call upon him. He used his premises at Cashmere View Street purely as a dwelling-house. The case is proceeding. .