Antonio Munoz Y Cia SA and Another v Frumar Ltd and Another
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 26 March 1999 |
| Date | 26 March 1999 |
| Court | Chancery Division |
Chancery Division
Before Mr Justice Laddie
Common agricultural policy - identification of grapes - no right to sue on use of different name
No recital in the relevant EEC Council Regulations, relating to the identification of grapes, had the effect of enabling a plaintiff, owning property rights in a particular strain, to sue a defendant who marketed that strain under a different name.
Mr Justice Laddie so held in the Chancery Division, in dismissing an action by the plaintiffs, Antonio Munoz Y Cia SA and Superior Fruiticola SA, against Frumar Ltd and Redbridge Produce Marketing Ltd, in which Munoz sought, inter alia, to enjoin Frumar from selling "Superior Seedless" grapes under the names "White Seedless", "Sult" or "Coryn".
Those Council Regulations, made with the objectives set out in article 39 and under articles 42 and 43 of the EC Treaty, were Regulations 1035/72/EEC (OJ 1972 L118/1), 823/87/EEC (OJ 1987 L84/59), 1730/87/EEC (OJ 1987 L163/25), 291/92/EEC (OJ 1992 L31/25), 2081/92/EEC (OJ 1992 L208/1) and 2200/96/EC (OJ 1996 L297/1)
Mr Martin Howe, QC and Miss Charlotte May for Munoz; Mr Mark Platts Mills, QC, for Frumar.
MR JUSTICE LADDIE said that Munoz held exclusive rights to grow and harvest in Spain "Superior Seedless" grapes ("SS"), a strain developed in the 1980s by Superior Farming Inc of USA, under a Spanish patent.
Frumar sold seedless grapes in the United Kingdom under the names "White Seedless", "Sult" and "Coryn". Recent DNA tests on "Coryn" grapes had led Frumar to accept that they were "SS" and after the first day of the trial it had told Munoz that it was, for the purpose of this action only, willing to accept that both "White Seedless" and "Sult" also were "SS".
Nonetheless Frumar contended that nobody could be sure what "SS" were, that DNA tests were too complicated to be within its reasonable reach, that it wished to cross-examine Munoz's expert witness, that the regulations were insufficiently transparent to be enforceable and that it had at all times acted with due diligence.
Just before Frumar's expert witness was due to give evidence, he and his report had been withdrawn. Two major issues had remained:
1 Did the relevant Council Regulations make the use of the variety name mandatory in relation to Frumar's grapes?
In his Lordship's view, the regulations required that any grape which was put on the market must bear its proper variety...
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