When is a Moneylender Not a Moneylender?

Horowhenua Chronicle, 11 July 1933, Page 3

When is a Moneylender Not a Moneylender ?

NEARLY 300 PER CENT.

ILLUMINATING EVIDENCE IN COURT CASE AUCKLAND, Last Night. - Evidence of moneylending transactions at high rates of interest was given during the hearing of a claim before Mr. Justice Reed in the Supreme Court. The defendant was a married woman who, it was stated m evidence, carried on the "business of a moneylender. A claim of £207 on promissory notes for £lO3 and £lO4 and interest was made by Robert Charles Cooke against Mrs. Ellen Batt. The promissory notes were dated June 1, and July 14, 1931. There was an alternative claim for the amount on the ground of alleged fraudulent misrepresentation. The defence was that plaintiff was an unregistered moneylender and the transaction was illegal. Fraud was denied. Counsel said defendant did not dispute that the plaintiff lent her two separate sums of £IOO, but contended that as she then promised to pay him interest at a rate greater than 10 per cent and as plaintiff was not a registered moneylender she was no legal liability to repay what she had been given. Defendant was a registered moneylender. Plaintiff said he • was retired in May, 1931. He met defendant who told'him she had a very profitable moneylending business but required more* capital •to make more money. She said she had never had a loss. Being a woman people aways paid her. She offered him two-thirds of the profits on the money he lent her, keeping one third for herself. When he lent her £2OO he received in return a stamped receipt (produced) which stated that £IOO of the money was to be lent out in small sums, the interest to be not less than £3 for every £lO, and the time to be not more than three months. The other £IOO was to be lent for six months, the interest to be £3O for that period. \ Witness said he received two promissory notes as Avell as the receipt. Early in July Mrs. Batt approached him for £IOO for a friend who was stated to be a high police official. Witness said later lie decided to withdraw from the business as he founcMic was being repaid with his own money.

Cross-examined, plaintiff admit tod that a :n'.:-.iVr of I >:u:s hi i l.r-en m-ido liv him n« recorded in his honks. These included one to Professor Grossman of iil'.O at .'.-3 interest i'or three months, another to him for £IOO for one month at £24 and a third loan of £IOO made direct to Professor Grossman with interest at £2O for one month. Witness said he found that the "police official" mentioned was really a moneylender. His Honour said plaintiff had to prove fraud as if Mrs. Batt had appeared on a criminal charge of fraud.