New Zealand grain supplier found guilty of dishonest behaviour

J Swap a family owned company was accused by another family owned company Hunter Grain of breach of trading partnership and conspiracy. Hunter Grain claimed that J Swap secretly had overseas meetings in an attempt to hijack NZ$80 m worth of animal feed business.

In the High Court in Hamilton earlier this year, Hunter Grain accused its former chief executive Richard Price of being in cohorts with J Swap director Stephen Swap to exclude Hunter Grain as primary kernel supplier to J Swap.

The company alleged the pair secretly met representatives from Singaporean commodity trader Toepfer to divert feed to the Matamata-based company, cutting Hunter Grain out of multimillion dollar deals.

In Justice Mark Cooper’s judgment NZ$4,638,521 was awarded to Hunter Grain, with additional interest that could be about $1m.

(exchange rate: NZ$1 = €0.59)