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"BLUE BELLE" £25,000 CLAIM SETTLEMENT

21st July 1939, Page 49
21st July 1939
Page 49
Page 49, 21st July 1939 — "BLUE BELLE" £25,000 CLAIM SETTLEMENT
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

ACLAIM by Mr. V. C. Bianci and Mr. 0. A. Hibbert; voluntary liquidators of Blue Belle Motors, Ltd., against Mr, Reginald Toms, to recover £25,000, with interest at 5 per cent., was settled before Mr, Justice Bennett in the Chancery Division last week.

The claim arose out of a dispute concerning the terms upon which the company, on January 27, 1931, purchased the London Terminal Coach Station, from which it ran its coaches, from Mr. Toms and a Mr. Thomas Boon.

The property was subject to a mortgage to secure £75,000, and the case for the liquidators was that the only consideration agreed by the company to be given for the purchase was the taking over by it of the mortgage.

Mr. Toms's case was that the company agreed also to pay £25,000 for the equity. It was alleged by the liquidators that this was a fictitious claim which had never been suggested by Mr. Toms until he got control of the company in August, 1932. Mr. Toms repudiated the allegation.

Assuming that Mr. Toms was right, another issue was as to whether Mr. Boon had assigned to him his halfshare of the £25,000.

Mr, R. F. Roxburgh, K.C., for the liquieators, in announcing that the parties had come to terms., stated that, as there was no committee of inspection, the compromise required the sanction of the Court.

His Lordship: " I know what you are going to get out of the settlement. It is a substantial sum of money and I am of opinion that the compromise is for the benefit of the creditors."

Mr. Roxburgh: "It is one of the terms of compromise that I should withdraw all charges of fraud against Mr. Toros and this I do unreservedly."

Sir Wm. Jowitt, K.C. (for Mr. Toros), said that, in January, 1931, the property, unquestionably, was conveyed to the company by a transfer in which the consideration money was expressed to be £100,000. There was no doubt that the company paid the ad valorem duty based on £100,000, and that the accounts of the company forever afterwards showed the payment of that duty which amounted to £1,000.

No suggestion had ever been made that this document was tainted with fraud or anything of that sort. Prior to that transfer the property had been valued by Messrs. Goddard and Smith, who expressed the opinion that it was

worth £136,000. The document of transfer was the basis of Mr. Torns's claim to the £25,000.

The question with regard to •Mr. Boon's share depended upon the law as to the construction of three documents. There was not a shadow of doubt that those documents were properly executed. The charges of fraud having been withdrawn without qualification, he saw no reason why Mr. Toms should not enter into the settlement.

His lordship stayed the proceedings on the terms agreed, which were not disclosed in court.


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