Sir George Lowndes -

The suit out of which this appeal arises is the offshoot of a case which came before this Board and was decided adversely to the present respondents (the then appellants) in May 1924. The facts leading up to the litigation are fully set out in the report, Imperial Tobacco Co., of India, 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 Make 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 considerable quantity of these to India and offered them for sale in Bombay and Calcutta. He succeeded in disposing of his earlier consignments upon favourable terms,