Mallya wants a swig of Chhabria's Officer's Choice

MUMBAI: An old court case filed way back in 1992 by Shaw Wallace against BDA over ownership of Officer’s Choice whisky threatens to reopen old wounds between liquor barons Vijay Mallya, chairman of India’s spirit and beer behemoth, United Breweries and Kishore Chhabria, chairman of BDA, which now owns the Officer’s Choice whisky brand.

In 2004, Mr Mallya and Mr Chhabria had reached a settlement of their more-than-a-decade long legal wrangle over the ownership of Herbertsons. Mr Mallya was forced to cough up Rs 131 crore and also transfer the ownership of BDA to Mr Chhabria. That’s how Mr Chhabria came to own the five-million case Officer’s Choice brand, the third largest whisky brand in the country.

So, after Mr Mallya gobbled up Shaw Wallace in March 2005, it was widely expected that the UB supremo would withdraw the seemingly nondescript case. But for some reason or the other, Mr Mallya chose not to withdraw it.

In the meantime, after Mr Chhabria took over BDA, Officer’s Choice sales went from 3 million cases to over 5 million cases in less than three years time. This rapid growth is believed to have caught Mr Mallya’s attention. Today, industry sources say the 1992 case could become his instrument to put pressure on Mr Chhabria to sell Officer’s Choice back to him.

When contacted, Vijay Mallya denied any such move. But a source close to Mr Mallya said: “When the Herbertsons deal took place, Shaw Wallace was not in our hands. But we took over Shaw Wallace after the deal with Mr Chhabria and the fact is that Shaw Wallace has a case against BDA over the ownership of Officer’s Choice.”

In effect, the Mallya camp is suggesting that even if Mr Mallya and Mr Chhabria had agreed to bury the hatchet and withdrawn all pending legal cases after the Herbertsons deal, their rapprochement did not cover any new cases that came up after the Shaw Wallace takeover.

Mr Chhabria refused to comment on the matter. Industry sources say that while there is nothing to suggest any obvious friction between the two liquor barons, there has invariably been an undercurrent of tension in the relationship. Much of it has to do with the same Herbertsons settlement that Mr Mallya was forced to make. Mr Mallya never made bones of the fact that he had been arm-twisted into coughing up Rs 131 crore and the ownership of BDA. After a gap of more than a decade, he perhaps sees this as an opportunity to settle old scores.

But all isn’t lost for Mr Chhabria, say sources close to him, especially since history seems to be on his side. In 1993, an year after Shaw Wallace had filed the case, Mr Mallya had himself chosen to make BDA a wholly-owned subsidiary of Herbertsons, a UB Group company, in return for handing over a 26% stake of Herbertsons to Mr Chhabria.

Irrespective of whoever wins this round between the two old warriors, one thing is clear: history has a strange way of haunting those who choose to ignore it.