An advertising campaign that crossed five million views within days, and that accused a market leader\u2019s flagship products of hiding harmful chemicals, has produced one of the year\u2019s sharper rulings on how far comparative advertising disparagement can go before it becomes an actionable wrong.<\/p>\n
Hindustan Unilever Limited (“HUL”), which sells the detergent Surf Excel and the dishwashing brand Vim, sued Kwick Living (I) Private Limited (“Kwick Living”), which markets cleaning products under the brand Beco, before the Delhi High Court. HUL alleged that Beco\u2019s “War on What\u2019s Hidden” campaign, launched on 14 August 2026 across YouTube, Instagram, hoardings and over a hundred influencer posts, falsely implied that Surf Excel and Vim cause skin irritation and allergic reactions because they contain Linear Alkylbenzene Sulfonate (“LAS”) and Benzisothiazolinone (“BIT”), while urging consumers to “Switch to BECO.” HUL\u2019s suit, numbered CS(COMM) 904\/2026, invoked commercial disparagement, infringement of its registered marks under the Trade Marks Act, 1999 (“Trade Marks Act”), trade dress infringement, and passing off. The suit\u2019s path to a ruling on merits was itself eventful: an earlier order had referred a question of territorial jurisdiction to a Larger Bench, before a Division Bench, in a connected appeal, found the suit prima facie maintainable and remanded the interim injunction application for decision, keeping the jurisdictional reference open.<\/p>\n
The court observed that comparative advertising disparagement is often used loosely to describe any statement casting a rival\u2019s product in an unfavourable light, but that this is not how the wrong is properly understood in law. The court noted that disparagement, properly defined, requires two conjunctive elements: a statement that is false, and a statement that causes injury. The court reasoned that a mere derogatory comparison, without more, does not become actionable simply because a competitor regards it as unflattering, since some degree of adverse comparison is inherent in any comparative advertisement. The court held that the line lies between legitimate comparison or puffery on one hand, and false, misleading, or deceptive representation on the other, and that only the latter attracts legal intervention.<\/p>\n
The court observed that it could not, at the interim stage, adjudicate the competing laboratory reports filed by the parties on the concentration of LAS and BIT, since that exercise required expert evidence at trial. The court found that even accepting that BIT and LAS could, on a standalone and isolated basis, cause skin irritation in a particular user, Beco\u2019s campaign did not present these facts in isolation. The court noted that the campaign juxtaposed the chemical claims with visual depictions of HUL\u2019s products and an invitation to switch brands, and that the unmistakable overall message conveyed to an average consumer was that using Surf Excel and Vim would cause skin irritation. The court reasoned that an average consumer would not deconstruct or scientifically analyse the campaign\u2019s individual claims, making the composite impression the operative test in this comparative advertising disparagement dispute rather than the literal accuracy of any single statement.<\/p>\n
The court opined that Beco\u2019s repeated display of HUL\u2019s registered marks, distinctive packaging, and advertising expressions, combined with health-related insinuations and an explicit call to switch brands, went beyond identifying a comparator and instead demonstrated a premeditated competitive attack. The court stated that comparative advertising disparagement claims typically fail when a defendant\u2019s message stays within genuine puffery, but that Beco\u2019s campaign, by citing complex chemical names, proportions and percentages to manufacture a sense of scientific certitude, crossed the permissible contours of comparative advertising under the Trade Marks Act. The court further observed that the campaign\u2019s timing and Beco\u2019s continued amplification after HUL\u2019s cease-and-desist notice reinforced the inference of a deliberate commercial attack rather than a bona fide transparency exercise.<\/p>\n
In view of the observations and the arguments presented by both the parties, the Delhi High Court held that:<\/p>\n