Freight firm hit by Elonex writ

Direct PC seller Elonex issued a writ for more than u500,000 last week against a sea-freight company which it claimed had refused to hand over Elonex PCs transported from the US.

But the freight company, Lep International of Bromley, said the dispute had been settled the day after the writ was issued and that the writ would now be withdrawn. Elonex declined to comment on whether the writ was being withdrawn.

In a separate case, Elonex has settled a two-year legal battle with its former advertising agency McCann-Erickson. The agency had claimed u78,000 damages and u30,000 in unpaid fees following its dismissal in November 1993 as Elonex's ad agency. The terms of the settlement were not made public. One agency chief was quoted as saying that the case signals that 'clients cannot hop from one agency to another'.

In the writ against Lep International, Elonex plc and Elonex Manufacturing claim the freight company had refused to hand over PCs worth u432,700.

Elonex also claimed u67,800 in damages. The dispute centred on a PC shipment that left the Elonex works in California on March 8 and was transported to Lep's Glasgow depot.

In the High Court writ, Elonex claimed Lep International was purporting to exercise a lien, a right over its property to protect a debt charged on that property. Lep representative George Papageorghiou said he was waiting for written confirmation that the Elonex writ had been withdrawn, and that the dispute had been resolved.