REPUDIATION OF DEED

Southland Times, Issue 23140, 5 March 1937, Page 9

REPUDIATION OF DEED

SUPREME COURT JUDGMENT (United Press Association) AUCKLAND, March 3. Judgment was issued by Mr Justice Callan in the Rotorua picture theatre case which occupied the Supreme Court for three days in December. Picture interests centring in Rotorua had repudiated the deed entered into with picture interests having headquarters in Gisborne on the ground that the deed was an unreasonable restraint of trade and contrary to public policy. The Gisborne interests sought the enforcement of the deed or, in alternative, £15,000 damages. His Honour, in a judgment occupying 52 pages, found that the deed was valid and enforceable, and granted the plaintiffs an injunction. The plaintiffs were Messrs R. J. Kerridge and H. B. Williams, of Gisborne, and the defendants, Messrs A. J. McDermott and D. W. Steele, of Rotorua, W. H. Bailey, of Huntly, W. Kay and G. Calder, of Auckland. and the Rotorua Theatres Limited, the defendants named being directors of the latter company under a deed of November 14, 1933. The defendants covenanted to appoint the plaintiffs as their sole agents for buying their motion pictures and sound films, and also to give plaintiffs their slide screen advertising rights, and 30 per cent of the profits from the Rotorua Theatres Limited. The parties also covenanted not to engage in picture business in competition with each other. In repudiating the deed the defendants said they had entered into it only because of plaintiffs’ threat to enter into competition with them in Rotorua. _______