SUPREME COURT.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLVI, Issue XLVI, 30 May 1914, Page 7

SUPREME COURT.

A COMPANY PROMOTION CASK

BY TELEGRAPH PiiESS ASSOCIATION

AUCKLAND, May 80. Judgment was given by Mr Justice Stringer in the Suproire Court in the claim by William Dalton against a company called the Manures, Ltd., and its directors, for the leturn of £025. which amount was subsequently reduced to £500, alleged to have bee a invested in the company as allotment and application morey in respect »>f 2500 shares. The defence was that the money paid over by Dalton was a loan +o Ty remain, the main-promoter in the floating of the company. Evideiv.'e was given by Alfred Taylor, J. S Dickson, M.P.. James C. Culpa'n, and John Rountree, directors Each admitted having accepted 50 shares in the company for nothing, they getting an assurance that thfi.v would have no responsibility whatever. Dic-kson -said he had consented after declining throe or four tii'ies. and aftei signing the prospectus ho heard nothing further aboutthe coxpariy. Pie was electioneering. The Judge said that the plaintiff had failed to prove that £500 had been paid to some uerson with authority to receive it on behalf of the prospective company. Moreover, lie thought there could be no question that the transaction was a loan by Dalton to Tvermain, and made under such conditions that the plaintiff would know that the money would not pet into the coffers of the company. His Honor added with reference to the application for shares, that the transaction had merely been engineered by the a^e-nt Hughes, in order to his own commission. Although it ]>ad been proved that the directors had.not been guilty of misconduct or negligence, it seemed to him that when gentlemen, apparently of business experience, lent their names to a. prospectus and signed documents which might mislead the public tliey were guilty of f^rave misconduct from the public point of view. Judgment was entered for the defendants.