IMPERIAL TOBACCO CO Vs. ALBERT BONNAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This suit was instituted in January 1925 for the recovery of about seven and half lakhs of rupees as damages for a variety of acts done by the defendant company. It was stated in the plaint that no part of the cause of action arose before February 1922.

(2.) The plaintiff towards the end of 1921 bought a large quantity of Gold Flake cigarettes on the terms that they should not be sold in Great Britain. The goods were two years old, they were made up in packets or cartons of tin, and 25,000 cigarettes in their cartons were packed in a strong tin-lined case. This brand of cigarettes is very well known as : having originally been the manufacture of W.D. & H.O. Wills, of Bristol whose successors in business are.the British American Tobacco Company Limited. The goods so bought by the plaintiff had (under a temporary arrangement necessitated apparently by the war) been manufactured in America and were part of a very large number of cigarettes which had originally been intended for troops but which were now being disposed of. They had been manufactured by the British American Tobacco Company Limited itself and were thus-genuine Gold Flake cigarettes and not counterfeit. The plaintiff bought them cheap at eight or nine shillings per thousand.

(3.) His case is that he contracted to buy 860 cases being 21 1/2 million cigarettes, that he disposed of some (apparently 194 cases) in Egypt and elsewhere, and that early in 1922 he came to India not merely to dispose of 666 cases already contracted for but also with a view to establish a continuing market in these war stocks of which further supplies in very large quantities were available or would become available.