Re FG Films Ltd

Re FG (Films) Ltd
Court High Court
Citation(s) [1953] 1 WLR 483
Keywords
Lifting the veil, statutory interpretation

Re FG (Films) Ltd [1953] 1 WLR 483 is a UK company law case concerning piercing the corporate veil. It turns on the proper interpretation of a statute, rather than, strictly speaking, an issue of company law.

Contents

Facts

FG films wanted Monsoon registered as a British film. It applied to be declared as the ‘maker’ under the Cinematograph Films Acts 1938-1948. The Board of Trade refused because it was made by the American ‘Film Group Inc’. The American company had promised to finance and provide facilities to the UK company for making the film. 90 shares were held by an American director and 10 by a British one. No shares were held by the third director, who was British. The film was made in India.

Judgment

Vaisey J held that the film could not be considered British made, even though the company owning the rights was a UK company. He said,

I think that their participation in any such undertaking was so small as to be practically negligible, and that they acted, in so far as they acted at all in the matter, merely as the nominee of and agent for an American company… The suggestion that this American company and that director were merely agents for the applicants is, to my mind, inconsistent with and contradicted by the evidence, and a mere travesty of the facts, as I understand and hold them to be...

They were bought into existence for the sole purpose of being put forward as having undertaken the very elaborate arrangements necessary for the making of this film and of enabling it thereby to qualify as a British film.

See also

Notes

References