A NORTH YORKSHIRE businessman who trades on the basis that his word is his bond has won a landmark court case over a get-out-clause in a supplier's small print.

A county court judge at York has upheld a claim by Derek Ashdown, of Ashdown Printing Machinery, that a phone conversation with a supplier who had let him down, but promised to put matters right, was more binding than written terms and conditions which waived their responsibility.

In a judgment described by Derek Ashdown's lawyer, Chris Thomson-Smith, of York-based commercial lawyers, Denison Till, as being "as rare as hen's teeth", Judge Walsh found that the verbal commitment made by Cougar Freight Services Ltd, Bradford, superseded its own written terms and conditions.

Printing machinery specialist Derek Ashdown, of Whixley, who trades globally, sued Cougar Freight Services after the company declined to pay additional expenses incurred when it failed to have containers ready in France in October 2002, to ship a large B1-5 colour Komori printing press he had sold to an Australian businessman in a deal worth almost £600,000.

The Australian customer, Ainslie Lamb, of Lambprint, Perth, chairman of the Printing Federation of Australia, had flown to the freight depot, near Charles De Gaulle Airport, France, to witness the loading of the printing press as a condition of the deal, but containers supposedly arranged by Cougar Freight Services to transport the press failed to materialise.

After Mr Ashdown told Cougar Freight Services "in no uncertain terms" that he would never do business with them again if they did not sort matters out, the company agreed to settle any extra expenses incurred by the delay.

Mr Ashdown presented an £8,000 bill, including costs for putting Mr Lamb up in a York hotel and flying him and various engineers from Yorkshire and London back to France a week later when the containers arrived.

But Cougar Freight Services drew attention to written terms and conditions on the back of their invoices which said they could not be held liable for additional costs however incurred.

In his written judgment into the case, heard in sittings at both York County Court and Leeds County Court, Judge Terry Walsh said: "I am satisfied that the exclusion clauses were waived and there was an agreement that the defendants would be liable for the claimant's reasonable losses."

Cougar Freight Services Ltd was ordered to pay Mr Ashdown an undisclosed sum and his legal fees.

Mr Thomson-Smith said: "It is said that a verbal contract is not worth the paper it is written on, but, in this case, the agreement reached on the phone was enforced by the court in preference to the written agreement which, in my experience, is about as rare as hen's teeth.

"This strikes a blow for the old-fashioned, honourable way of doing business and the principal that, if you make a promise, you should honour it."

Howard Grainger, director of Cougar Freight Services, yesterday declined to comment.

Updated: 11:21 Friday, December 10, 2004