Market gardeners not involved in fraud, defence says

Despite innuendoes being made by PGG Wrightson, there is no suggestion that Pukekohe market gardening firm Wai Shing was involved in any fraud, defence lawyer Graham Kohler has told the High Court.

PGG Wrightson is suing Wai Shing and market gardening firm Hira Bhana for more than $2 million on the grounds that they knowingly accepted goods that had been underpriced by Jason Dark, manager of Fruitfed's Pukekohe branch.

Dark was found dead in the Waikato River on December 3, 2002 - the day after he had been due to answer inquiries about inconsistencies in his invoicing.

Both defendants deny they owe any money to PGG Wrightson.

A series of takeovers and mergers have resulted in Fruitfed now being owned by PGG Wrightson.

There were many legitimate reasons Dark could have discounted products to Wai Shing, Kohler suggested yesterday in cross examining Fruitfed operations manager Stephen Guerin.

Guerin agreed chemicals were often heavily discounted, at the branch manager's discretion, as they reached the end of their shelf life.

He conceded Fruitfed branch managers such as Dark had wide-ranging powers to negotiate prices with customers.

Kohler suggested there was no reason customers would have any knowledge of the legitimate limits of those powers.

He said the facts were that there were several invoices found that didn't make a lot of sense. But Wai Shing had done reconciliations of the relevant transactions and faxed them back to the Pukekohe office.

PGG Wrightson claims the defendants did not complain to anyone other than Dark, because they "knew that the deals they were getting were more competitive and that they were unauthorised".

Guerin conceded that although Wai Shing's reconciliations had ultimately been dealt with by Dark, they could easily have been sighted by other staff members.

PGG Wrightson contends that Dark made no significant financial gain from his undercharging.

The case continues.