Ten Registered Letters ex Eastbound Aircraft (in Prize: No. 156 of 1941)

• Jurisdiction: Bermuda
• Judgment Date: 04 June 1949
• Date: 04 June 1949
• Docket Number: Case No. 208
• Court: Supreme Court (Bermuda)

Bermuda, Supreme Court (in Prize: No. 156 of 1941).

(Sir C. Brooke Francis C.J.)

Case No. 208

In the Matter of Ten Registered Letters ex Eastbound Aircraft.

Prize — Contraband — Currency Notes — Burden of Proof — Ultimate Destination — Estoppel by Release of Similar Goods — Doctrine of Infection.

The Facts.—In the course of censorship of mails in transit through Bermuda, the British Censorship in the months of September, October and November 1940 detained ten packets posted in New York by the claimants, an American company, addressed to a firm (for convenience herein referred to as “Cupertino”) who carried on business in Oporto (Portugal). On examination these packets were found to contain a large number of currency notes, consisting of French, Swiss and Belgian francs, Italian lira, German Reichsmarks, Brazilian sterling bonds and South African and Gibraltar pounds, to a value, at the time, of $28,000. The packets were seized as contraband, and action commenced in the Prize Court.

The claimants, who were specialists in foreign currencies, had since 1938 been conducting currency transactions with Cupertino. On telegraphic advice from the claimants that consignments had been posted in New York, Cupertino would place in the Portuguese mail dollar or other credits equal to the exchange value of the currency en route to them. During the last three months of 1939 and in 1940, the claimants exported to Cupertino some $331,000.

Evidence was filed on behalf of the Crown showing, inter alia, that in 1940 during the time when the claimants' mail was being intercepted in Bermuda, Cupertino was “in telegraphic business contact” with the Commerz Bank, Berlin, to whose credit in Swiss banks sums in Swiss and Belgian currency had been paid; and that at that time Cupertino was acting as a postal intermediary between the claimants and two banks in Switzerland, for the transmission to the Deutsche Bank, Berlin, of packets containing German securities.

On October 1, 1941, the Board of Trade, by virtue of the Trading with the Enemy Act, 1939, placed Cupertino on the Statutory or “Black” List.

Evidence on behalf of the claimants was filed to the following effect. The ownership of the consignments of currency generally, and of the ten packets seized in particular, was retained until the purchase price had been paid by the consignee. The claimants admitted that during the year 1940 they had become aware of the delays occasioned by the activities of the Bermuda Censorship, but now contended that “had we been under any apprehension that our property might be seized in Prize, we would have been unwilling to incur the risk...