PAYMENT FOR MUNITIONS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 100, 30 April 1938, Page 9

PAYMENT FOR MUNITIONS

APPEAL COURT UPHOLDS CLAIM. [ Per Preus Association.] WELLINGTON, April 29. A decision that the price of ammunition purchased by the New Zealand Government from the Colonial Ammunition Company should be converted into New Zealand currency was reached by the Appeal Court in a judgment delivered this morning in the case Colonial Ammunition Company, Ltd. v. the King. A contrast was entered into by the appellant company with the New Zealand Government for the supply of small arms munition, provided that the price payable was to be the price equal to the current War Office cost. In 1936 the question of the addition of appropriate exchange to convert the War Office price into New Zealand currency was raised by the company, and in May, 1937, the company filed a petition of right against the King, seeking to recover £6193 2s 7d alleged to be short paid by the Crown for the years 1936-37. Mr. Justice Reed, who heard the matter last October in the Supreme Court at Auckland, held that the company was not entitled to the amount claimed as representing the exchange difference between English and New Zealand currency.

The appeal having been taken before the Chief Justice (Sir Michael Myers) and Justices Blair, Kennedy, Callan, and Northcroft, judgments were delivered by their Honours this morning, holding that the case had been wrongly decided in the Court below and that the price of the ammunition supplied must be converted into New Zealand currency.