WHYATT CJ This is an appeal from a decision of the Board constituted under the Singapore Essential Regulations dismissing a claim by the appellants in respect of large quantities of petroleum which were seized as war booty by the armed forces of the Crown on the re-occupation of Singapore on the 5th September, 1945. The appellants contend that the petroleum was their property and not, as the respondents allege, the property of the Japanese State and in support of their contention, they rely upon two broad submissions, first, that they had a valid title to the petroleum under municipal law, and, secondly, that they were never lawfully deprived of their title by the Japanese belligerent occupant.

Before examining these submissions in detail, it will be convenient to set out the relevant facts which have been proved or admitted in the course of these lengthy proceedings. The appellants are three oil companies, incorporated in Holland, who prior to the outbreak of the war with Japan in 1941, carried on the business of producers and refiners of oil in Sumatra. Between them, they held all the concessions in Sumatra and owned two large refiners in the Palembang area in the southern part of the island. The total number of concessions was 86 of which 61 were held by the first appellant, 2 by the second appellant and 23 by the third appellant. The earliest concession was granted by the Netherlands Indies Government in 1907, and thereafter concessions were granted at various dates for periods ranging from 40 years to 75 years, the last concession being granted in 1941. By the end of 1941, the appellants had established production in 32 oil reservoirs, as they are technically known, situated in various places in the concession areas as shown on a map produced at the hearing of the appeal. These oil reservoirs are geological structures enclosing the crude oil in its natural state and it was agreed by the parties that the oil does not escape from them except by means of boreholes, or wells, drilled into the reservoirs from the surface. No detailed information was supplied as to the number of wells which had been drilled into the reservoirs by the appellants by the end of 1941 or as to the rate of production of the wells at that date but it may be inferred that production was on a substantial scale from the fact that the two refiners already referred to had a total capacity of 90,000 gallons per day. The position, therefore, at the outbreak of hostilities, was that the appellants were producing crude oil in commercial quantities from some 32 reservoirs under concessions granted by the Netherlands Indies Government which still had substantial periods to run, and were refining crude oil obtained from these reservoirs on a large scale in their refineries at Palembang.

For the evidence of the events which occurred during the Japanese occupation, the parties were, of necessity, dependant upon the testimony of Japanese naval and military officers. The effect of this testimony, some of which was given orally, and some on affidavit, may be summarised as follows. When the Japanese armed forces occupied Sumatra, they immediately seized the appellants installations in the field and also their refineries at Palembang because, as a Japanese naval officer, Admiral Watanabe, called by the respondents put it, "oil was the most vital war material at that time, and personally, I thought we started the war for the sake of the oil." The installations had been badly damaged as part of the Netherlands Indies Governments denial policy, and the Japanese military authorities organized a special technical unit under military discipline to repair them. By the end of the first year of the Japanese occupation, they were all in working order again and crude oil was once more being extracted from the reservoirs and being processed in the appellants refineries. The Japanese military authorities did not bring any new oi