Full Volume 19 - Federal Maritime Commission

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FEDERAL MARITIME COMMISSION
pursuant to Rule 3a of the Commission s Rules of Practice and
Procedure 46 CFR 502 41 and 2 section 22 of the Shipping Act 1916
which had appeared in previous orders in forwarder licensing cases as
authority for their institution had been omitted from the Order in this
proceeding
It was my view however that 1 the Commiasion s Order contained
certain allegations of fact which if proven would appear to demonatrate
that applicant was not qualified for a license 2 the evidence to support
the allegations which was developed during the investigation of the
applicant was then in the hands of Hearing Counsel and 3 had the
Commission sinvestigation uncovered anything else tending to diaqualify
applicant it would have included appropriate allegations in its Order
Thus absent proof of the specific allegations in the Order International
was qualified for a license Under these circumstances to have the
appiicant to proceed first and prove Ehat he was fit willing and able to
conduct the business of forwarding would make the applicant spread on
this record facts which were not challenged by the Commission s staff
during its invesdgation nor raised as issues in the Commission s Order or
if applicant chose to challenge the allsgations in the Commission s Order
he would be put in the position of disproving allegations in support nf
which no evidence had yet been adduced hewould be attempting to
prove the negative Accordingly I ruled that Hearing Counseldust
proceed first and present his case in support of the allegations in the
Order
Hearing Counsel take no issue on brief with the procedure adopted and
Ionly allude to it here because of the impression conveyed to me by
Hearing Counsel that the Commission had intended a new type of
procedure when it made the mentioned changes in its Order Ihave no
idea what if any changes in trial procedure were intended by the
Commission when the Order was changed and they are not evident from
the terms ofthe Order Iffaced with the same kind oforder in the future
Iwould adopt the same procedure
The statement of facts set forth below is divided into two parts First
those findings dealing with the alleged misregresentations of applicant to
the Commission and second those findings concerned with the experi
ence or lack of it on the part of the applicant corporation s qualifying
officer Certain other facts appear
in the Discussion and Conclusion
portion of this decision primarily due to an effort to achieve continuity in
presentation
Misrepresentations
On its first application International represented one Miss Belinda
Hilbert as an officer of International and gave her experience as two
years in international freight forwarding On January 24 1974 Mr
Swift then the purported President of International informed the
Commission sDistrict Invesdgator Robert St 7ohn that Miss Hilbert was
19FMC