Prima Facie Crosses Permissible Contours Of Comparative Advertising: Delhi High Court Restrains Beco's "War On What's Hidden" Campaign Against Vim And Surf Excel
|The Court held that the truth of individual ingredient claims is no defence where the overall message misleads consumers, and distinguished the truth defence in disparagement from the bonnard principle in defamation.
The Delhi High Court has restrained BECO-parent Kwick Living (I) Private Limited from continuing its "War on What's Hidden" advertising campaign targeting Hindustan Unilever Limited's VIM dishwash gel and Surf Excel detergent, holding that even where the defendant's ingredient-level claims regarding the presence of LAS and BIT are assumed to be accurate, the campaign, viewed as a whole, prima facie crosses the permissible contours of comparative advertising by conveying to an average consumer that the plaintiff's products are unsafe to use.
Hindustan Unilever Limited, filed an interim injunction application filed by under Order XXXIX Rules 1 and 2 read with Section 151 of the CPC, in a commercial suit for disparagement, trademark and copyright infringement, passing off and unfair competition.
Rejecting the defendant's truth-based defence, the Court held that the aspect of truth in a disparagement claim cannot be assessed by isolating individual statements or frames of an advertisement. Further that the Bonnard principle, under which a defamation defendant's plea of justification ordinarily defeats an interim injunction, does not squarely apply to commercial disparagement, where the burden instead lies on the defendant to show a prima facie tenable basis for its claim of truth before the campaign can escape interim restraint.
A Bench of Justice A.J. Bhambhani observed, “The overall result of these representations contained in the impugned campaign, when perceived together and holistically, is not mere comparative advertising which eulogises the defendant's products as being superior to those of the plaintiff, but denigrates the plaintiff’s products purportedly couched in verified scientific basis. The impugned campaign further cites complex chemical names, proportions, and percentages of the harmful ingredients to give the viewer a sense of certitude that the plaintiff’s products are risky to use. In the opinion of this court, in doing so, the defendant prima facie crosses the permissible contours of comparative advertising”.
Senior Advocates Amit Sibal, Saikrishna Rajagopal appeared for the plaintiff and Senior Advocates Chander M. Lall appeared for the respondent.
Hindustan Unilever's case was that Kwick Living had, from August 14, 2026, run a coordinated campaign under the hashtag "#WarOnWhatsHidden" across YouTube, Instagram, hoardings and influencer collaborations, using HUL's registered trademarks, packaging and taglines including "Power of 100 Lemons" and "Daag Acche Hain", while claiming that the presence of Linear Alkylbenzene Sulfonate (LAS) and Benzisothiazolinone (BIT) in VIM and Surf Excel could cause skin irritation and allergic reactions, and directing viewers to "Switch to BECO".
HUL contended that individual reels had crossed 5.6 million views and the campaign's YouTube advertisements over 1 million views by the time the suit was filed, and that a cease-and-desist notice dated August 15, 2026 had gone unheeded.
Kwick Living, in response, maintained that every claim in the campaign was ingredient-specific, based on NABL-accredited laboratory testing, framed as a capability ("can cause") rather than a certainty, and that it had, at every stage, chosen the reading most favourable to HUL.
Notably, the matter reached this stage after a preliminary detour on jurisdiction: by judgment dated August 25, 2026, the same Bench had referred to a Larger Bench the question of whether the suit was maintainable in Delhi, given the place of registration of the parties and the place where the cause of action arose. However, in an appeal carried by HUL, Kwick Living filed an affidavit before the Division Bench confirming a GST registration and principal place of business in Delhi and admitting that campaign hoardings had been put up and its products sold in Delhi.
On this basis, the Division Bench, returned a prima facie finding of maintainability and remanded the injunction application for decision, while keeping the jurisdictional reference open.
On merits, the Court held that disparagement, in its legally actionable sense, requires the conjunctive elements of falsity and injury, and that a mere unflattering or derogatory comparison, inherent in most comparative advertising, is not by itself actionable.
However, examining the campaign's storyboards, the Court found that the juxtaposition of chemical names, percentages, visuals of HUL's products, and the "Switch to BECO" call-to-action, read together, created the unmistakable impression that using the plaintiff's products would cause skin irritation, redness, itching or eczema, notwithstanding that BECO's own laboratory report acknowledged LAS is present in "typical commercial quantities" across the industry.
Concluding that HUL had made out a prima facie case, that the balance of convenience favoured HUL, and that irreparable harm would follow absent interim relief, the Court directed Kwick Living to forthwith pull down, remove and recall all advertisements forming part of the impugned campaign, in any form or medium, within one week, and to file a compliance affidavit within a further week, while clarifying that the restraint was confined to the impugned campaign and did not bar the defendant from otherwise engaging in lawful comparative advertising vis-à-vis HUL's products.
Cause Title: Hindustan Unilever Limited v. Kwick Living (I) Private Limited (Neutral Citation: 2026:DHC:7695)
Appearances:
Plaintiff: Amit Sibal, Senior Advocate, Rajiv Nayar, Advocate, Saikrishna Rajagopal, Senior Advocate.
Respondents: Chander M. Lall, Senior Advocate, Shwetasree Majumder, Prithvi Singh, Jahnvi Chadha, Advocates.