9911796707
TMI Blog1929 (6) TMI 1X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ndia, Ltd., v. Bonnan [1924] A.C. 755, for the purposes of the present appeal they may be summarized as follows: The respondents a limited company incorporated in India, but to a certain extent apparently subordinate to the British-American Tobacco Company, Ltd., in this country, who held some 80 per cent of the Indian Company's shares, had been importing and selling Wills' Gold Flake cigarettes upon monopoly terms in India since 1910, and had no doubt built up an exceedingly valuable trade. In 1921 the appellant (Bonnan) purchased some millions of genuine Wills' Gold Flake cigarettes from the British Army canteen authorities at a price which would enable him to undersell the respondents in the Indian market. He shipped a cons ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... icles, lawfully acquired from the lawful manufactures, and that as such the appellant (Bonnan) had a right to sell them in India. 3. The Bombay suit, which had been stayed pending the final decision of the Calcutta suit, was dismissed by consent in November 1924. 4. No proceedings were taken by the appellant either in Calcutta or Bombay to enforce the undertaking in damages given by the respondent, but on 21st January 1925, he instituted in the Calcutta High Court the suit oat of which the present appeal arises, claiming from the respondents damages (amounting in all to over seven lakhs of rupees) on the allegation that the former proceedings were taken maliciously without reasonable or probable cause. The trial Judge (Pearson, J) held th ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ld be an infringement of the respondents' mark, and adding that he had taken the opinion of a well-known counsel in England, who concurred. It appears that Mr. Macnaghten was a Director of and the standing solicitor to the British-American Tobacco Company, and be is referred to by Mr. Abbott in his evidence as ''our legal adviser in London." 6. At the trial before Pearson, J., the first cable of 4th April was put in evidence by the appellant, but that of the 10th, though tendered at the hearing and referred to in the evidence, was rejected, apparently on the ground that it had not been duly disclosed, and the learned Judge, excluding this obviously important document entirely from his consideration, held that the responden ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... t though, as the event proved, that advice was wrong it would be impossible rightly to hold that the respondents in acting upon it had no reasonable or probable cause for the course they took. 8. Their Lordships having come to this conclusion, it is not material for them to consider what other conditions may be necessary to enable a plaintiff to succeed in a suit of this nature. There was much discussion in India, and some also before this Board, as to this principles to be deduced from the judgments in The Quartz Hill Consolidated Gold Mining Co. v. Eyre [1883] 11 Q. B. D. 674= 52 L. J. Q. B. 488= 31 W. R. 668= 49 L. T. 249. Their Lordships, however, make no pronouncement upon this aspect of the case, which may require further considerati ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... m the consideration of this referee of one particular head of damage under which a large claim was made in the plaint. 11. It appears that at the date of the injunction the appellant had outstanding in the hands of his vendors a large quantity of cigarettes, no doubt intended for the Indian market, but on which only a deposit had been paid. On 17th May 1922, he wrote to his vendors, asking them to cancel the goods, as owing to the injunction he would be unable to dispose of them in India. This was confirmed by another letter of the appellant dated 6th June 1922, despatched only two days before the injunction was dissolved, and at a time when he knew (as the terms of the letter show) that his vendors were still prepared to keep the contract ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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