UNUSUAL POSITION

Southland Times, Issue 20615, 13 October 1928, Page 8

UNUSUAL POSITION

RESULT OF ASHBURTON BANKRUPTCY. (Per United Press Association.) Auckland, October 12. An unusual legal position has arisen as the result of the bankruptcy at Ashburton of George Wilcox, garage proprietor, who was already an undischarged bankrupt having been adjudicated in Auckland in 1922. Claims proved against his estate at that time amounted to £503 and his assets realized £2. The liabilities in his Ashburton bankruptcy amounted to £6,354. The assignee there had realized £BlO and he hoped to realize a further £250 from book debts. If the Auckland creditors took the full sum to which they were entitled, only about £250 would remain to be distributed among the Canterbury creditors. Mr A. S. Nicholls, on behalf of the Canterbury creditors, said that he was aware he had no legal standing but the Canterbury creditors had felt that the legal position was not quite fair. The creditors in the first bankruptcy were entitled to the full amount and interest at 6 per cent, but speaking equitably, the money in the estate was not the Auckland creditors’ money but money collected out of assets that had been bought with the Canterbury creditors’ money. He suggested that the Auckland creditors should accept 10/- in the pound which would give them a fair dividend while allowing the Ganterbury creditors something less than 2/- in the pound. The only resolution passed was that the creditors at the meeting acting unanimously and as an act of grace, were prepared to forgo interest and recommend the creditors not present to do the same. “This is the first case in my experience in which Auckland creditors have benefited from creditors in any other part of the Dominion in this way, but there have been three cases in which Auckland creditors have lost to creditors elsewhere,” said the assignee. “These cases, however, have not been on all fours with this one in which 20/- in the pound is available. The others were small amounts.”