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Showing contexts for: Motion Re in Commissioner Of Income-Tax, Bombay vs Metro Goldwyn Mayer (India) Ltd. (As ... on 2 November, 1938Matching Fragments
Now in the present case the non-resident is Culver Export Corporation of New York and the assessee carrying on business in British India is the Metro Goldwyn Mayer (India) Limited, and both those parties are corporations registered in America. The relationship between them in constituted by a contract of the 1st of September 1931, which is Exhibit A. It denies the parties as vendor and vendee, the non-resident being called the vendor and Metro Goldwyn Mayer (India) Limited, being called the vendee. But the adoption of those descriptions does not effect the nature of the transaction and does not turn the transaction into a sale if in fact it is not a sale. The agreement starts by reciting that the vendor owns the exclusive rights in Indian, among other places, of the motion pictures therein mentioned and that the vendee desires to purchases the pictures therein mentioned picture rights in the territory on terms and conditions there in after set forth. The agreement start by reciting that the vendor owns the exclusive rights in India, among other places, of the motion pictures therein mentioned and that the vendee desires to purchases the vendors motion picture rights in the territory on terms and conditions thereinafter set forth. The vendor then sells to the vendor for a period beginning from the date thereof and ending on 31st August 1932 (so that the agreement is for a year) sole and exclusive rights to re-sell, exhibit, lease and otherwise exhibit throughout the territory all motion picture productions controlled or purchased by the vendor. Then the vendor enters into contracts under which he has to perform various acts which are intended to have the effect of making the user of these productions by the vendee profitable. He has, for instances to supply negatives and positives, to maintain a publicity department in New York and to supply news items, and so forth. Then the vendee enters into various contracts under which he has to provide sufficient sales force, and he has to pay 70 per cent. of the taking to the vendor and he has to deliver accounts and make remittances weekly with an allowance for bad debts. He has to take all necessary steps to protect the property of the vendor in respect of the copy right, and so further; he has to advertise, and is not to assign. There is a clause that nothing in the document is to be construed as constituting a partnership; and the learned Commissioner seems to think that the introduction of that clause really suggests that in fact the document does constitute a partnership. In my view, the arrangement between the parties is not a partnership; it is something in the nature of a licence and certainly no, in my opinion, a sale out and out. Taking the document as a whole, it seems to me perfectly plain that there is a business connection between these two companies. Under which the non-resident companies to acquire 70 per cent. of the gains are made by him from or through this business connection. It may be also that the makes profits or gains are made by him from or through tangible property in British India, namely, the negatives and positives of the films, but I think it is more satisfactory and more correct to base the case on the view that the non-resident is receiving profits or gains in respect of a business connection between himself and the assessee.