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I confirm my advice to you that in my opinion Rule 405 does
not give the Chief
Executive any option but to pay the levy to the New Zealand Racehorse
Owners
Federation (Inc). The rule is mandatory and
not permissive. The only exception to
this is if in fact the Board has reduced the prescribed fee by the
amount of the
Special Levy and I am sure that that has not occurred.
As far as an information to the JCA is concerned, under Rule
1103 (4) (d) an
information may be filed only by a Stipendiary Steward or Racecourse
Inspector,
other than during a race meeting, and then only if that person has
received written
permission from the Chief Executive to do so. Of course that is an
extremely unlikely
event in this situation.
What I suggest the Federation does is seek the leave of the
Judicial Committee on
any particular raceday for a Ruling under Rule 1120 and I attach a
draft letter which
you might wish to file with a raceday Judicial Committee. I trust that
you have made
written complaints to Thoroughbred Racing about the non-payment of the
levy
because those complaints would be cruoal evidence at any hearing in
relation to
your application for a Ruling. Telephone calls are really not enough in
circumstances
like
this.
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Legal
Opinion