Agricultural Marketing Act 1958

18 Registration of certain contracts. U.K.

(1) It shall be the duty of the board, on the application of any party to such a contract as is referred to in subsection (1) of the last foregoing section, not being such a contract as is referred to in subsection (3) of that section, to register the contract within the period of fourteen days after the application is made unless—

(a) the application is made after the said subsection (1) has, by virtue of subsection (2) of the last foregoing section, ceased to apply to the contract; or

(b) in the case of a contract made during the relevant period, the board are of opinion that the contract was made with a view to evading the operation of the scheme by or under which the performance of the contract is prohibited.

(2) If any party to a contract is aggrieved by the omission of a board to register the contract within the period referred to in the foregoing subsection, he may, within twenty-one days after the expiration of that period, appeal to the court, and, pending the determination of any such appeal, subsection (1) of the last foregoing section shall, notwithstanding anything in subsection (2) of that section, continue to apply to the contract.

(3) On any appeal under this section, the board concerned and any party to the contract may appear and be heard, and if, on the hearing of any such appeal, the court finds—

(a) that the application for registration of the contract was made before the expiration of the period on the expiration of which subsection (1) of the last foregoing section ceased, by virtue of subsection (2) of that section, to apply to the contract, and

(b) in the case of a contract made during the relevant period, that the contract was not made with a view to evading the operation of the scheme,

the court shall by order direct the registration of the contract, and thereupon the contract shall be deemed to have been registered as from the date of the order.

(4) Where the court does not by order direct the registration of a contract, being a contract made during the relevant period, any party to the contract who is certified by the court to have entered into the contract in good faith without a view to evading the operation of the scheme may recover the amount of any damage suffered by him by reason of the avoidance of the contract from any other party to the contract who is certified by the court to have entered in to the contract with a view to evading the operation of the scheme.

(5) Subject to the provisions of section one hundred and eleven of the M1 County Courts Act, 1934 (which provides for the removal into the High Court of any proceedings commenced in a county court), the jurisdiction of the court under this section with respect to any contract shall be exercised by the county court F1 ...:

Provided that if, before proceedings in respect of an appeal under this section are commenced in the county court, the board concerned and all parties to the contract agree that the appeal should be heard by the High Court, the jurisdiction of the court under this section shall be exercised by the High Court.

(6) For the purposes of this section, “the relevant period”, in relation to a scheme, means a period beginning twelve months before the date when notice of the submission of the scheme was published in the Gazette and ending six months after the expiration of the suspensory period, or, in the case of a substitutional scheme, ending six months after the date when the scheme comes into force.

(7) In the application of this section to Scotland the following subsection shall be substituted for subsection (5):—

“(5) The jurisdiction of the court under this section with respect to any contract shall be exercised by the sheriff within whose jurisdiction any party to the contract has dwelt or carried on business at any time during the period within which the appeal may be brought:

Provided that—

(a) if, before proceedings in respect of an appeal under this section are commenced in the sheriff court, the board concerned and all parties to the contract agree that the appeal should be heard by the Court of Session, the jurisdiction of the court under this section shall be exercised by the Court of Session; and

(b) it shall be lawful for the Court of Session, on the application of the board concerned or of any party to the contract, to require any appeal to the sheriff under this section to be remitted to the Court of Session”

Textual Amendments

F1 Words in s. 18(5) omitted (22.4.2014) by virtue of Crime and Courts Act 2013 (c. 22), s. 61(3), Sch. 9 para. 57; S.I. 2014/954, art. 2(c) (with art. 3) (with transitional provisions and savings in S.I. 2014/956, arts. 3-11)

Marginal Citations

M1 1934 c. 53.