WELLINGTON - The new Apple and Pear Board is checking if it can legally investigate a claim that the commercial company Enza undercut an independent exporter.
Chairman John Isles, whose regulatory board monitors Enza, said that he was "not quite so sure" Enza was right to say the proper channels for
complaint were the Apple and Pear Board, or the new independent export permits committee.
"They [Enza] ought to have explained."
The board and the permits committee have complaints from Apple Exporters' Forum chairman Peter Beavan, of Hawkes Bay, that Enza, which exports most New Zealand pipfruit, had this season tried to undercut him in the United States.
Mr Beavan had gained a permit for exporting to a US supermarket chain.
He alleged Enza, after getting a summary of his application from the permits committee, went to his customer and offered fruit well below his price. His customer did not take up Enza's offer.
Meanwhile, Enza warned that its critics could damage New Zealand in overseas markets by "deliberately distorting the facts."
"There is an organised lobby group in this country determined to achieve deregulation by any means," chief executive David Geor said.
Reported statements from independent exporters in recent weeks about export volumes management and the export permits process seemed to be based on "very little substance."
A spokesman said Mr Geor would not talk to the media until he had returned from overseas in early June and held a round of meetings with growers.
The permits committee, set up last year by the new Apple and Pear Board as part of an industry restructure, in late January signed a legally binding agreement with Enza over confidentiality of commercial information in the permit process.
While the committee would investigate a breach of this agreement, it was up to Mr Beavan to prove the breach had occurred and take action, sources said.
The agreement was signed when the committee agreed to supply Enza with a summary of independent applications.
The agreement binds Enza not to use the summary information commercially, and limits what Enza officials can see. - NZPA
