Product Disparagement: Delhi High Court Orders Beco To Pull Down Ads Targeting Surf Excel And Vim

The Delhi High Court has restrained Kwick Living (I) Private Limited, the company behind cleaning-products brand BECO, from continuing its advertising campaign "War on What's Hidden," holding that it crosses the line from permissible comparative advertising into commercial disparagement of Hindustan Unilever Limited's (HUL) well-known products, VIM and SURF EXCEL.

Justice A. J. Bhambhani, deciding HUL's application for an interim injunction under Order XXXIX Rules 1 and 2 of the Code of Civil Procedure, directed Kwick Living to pull down, remove and recall every advertisement carrying the offending claims, across hoardings, YouTube, Instagram, influencer posts and its commercial website, within one week, and to file an affidavit of compliance a week after that.

The dispute arose after Kwick Living launched the campaign on August 14, 2026, tagged #WarOnWhatsHidden, asserting that Linear Alkylbenzene Sulfonate (LAS) and Benzisothiazolinone (BIT), ingredients present in HUL's Surf Excel and Vim, "can cause skin irritation & allergic reactions," while urging consumers to "Switch to BECO," a brand claimed to be free of both chemicals. HUL, represented by Senior Advocates Amit Sibal and Rajiv Nayar along with advocates Saikrishna Rajagopal, Sidharth Chopra, Nitin Sharma, Sneha Jain, Vivek Ayyagari, Abhinav Bhalla, Saksham Dhingra and Smriti Nair, argued that the campaign amounted to "prima facie targeted commercial disparagement couched in public interest," pointing out that individual reels had already crossed 5.6 million views by the time the suit was filed.

Kwick Living, represented by Senior Advocate Chander M. Lall with advocates Shwetasree Majumder, Prithvi Singh, Jahnvi Chadha, Rohan Krishna Seth, Devyani Nath, Krtin Bhasin, Ritwik Marwaha, Vanshika Singh and Annanya Mehan, defended the campaign as truthful comparative advertising based on NABL-accredited laboratory test reports, submitting that every claim was ingredient-specific and used the qualifier "can cause" rather than "does cause." It further argued that a trader is entitled to compare his goods with a rival's named products so long as the underlying statements are true.

The Court agreed truth is a valid defence to a claim of disparagement, but held the truth of an isolated fact cannot be assessed by picking out individual frames of an advertisement. "The court must consider the overall message conveyed by the advertisement, and the impact that such message would have on the average consumer," the judgment states, adding that a particular element "may, when viewed in isolation, be accurate or truthful, but when juxtaposed with its other elements, the advertisement viewed as a whole may convey a false and/or misleading and/or deceptive message."

Applying this test, the Court found that while the ingredient-level figures cited by Kwick Living may be accurate in isolation, the campaign, taken as a whole, conveyed to an average consumer that using HUL's products "would cause" skin irritation, "including redness, itching, or even eczema," rather than merely that the ingredients had that capability. The judgment notes that "an average consumer... would neither bother nor have the expertise to analyze or deconstruct the narrative," and that pairing the health claims with an invitation to "SWITCH TO BECO" revealed the campaign's underlying "commercial motive."

The Court clarified that disparagement in law requires both falsity and injury, and that "a mere derogatory comparison, without more, cannot... be equated with disparagement that is actionable in law." It held, however, that Kwick Living had failed to show that the impugned representations were prima facie true or that they did not mislead. Importantly, the Court underlined that the restraint applies only to the specific campaign found objectionable, leaving Kwick Living free to run other comparative advertisements against HUL's products.

The judgment came against the backdrop of a separate jurisdictional wrangle: a Division Bench had earlier given a prima facie finding that the suit was maintainable in Delhi, after Kwick Living conceded holding a Delhi GST registration and putting up hoardings in the capital, remanding the interim injunction plea to the Single Judge, while keeping the larger question of territorial jurisdiction open for adjudication at trial.

Case Title: Hindustan Unilever Limited vs. Kwick Living (I) Private Limited

Judgment Date: September 10, 2026

Bench: Justice A. J. Bhambhani