Opinion ID: 2199033
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Jan's control.

Text: After Thomas' death Jan became the active manager of the enterprise  the Chief, as Thomas Bata had been. Cipera and Muska continued to be the chief assistants. Tom's education was completed in 1933, and he entered upon a career of training in the business. Thus, Thomas Bata's scheme was carried into effect. For several years all appears to have gone well. The enterprise continued, as before, as a family concern. The Chancellor found that during these years the parties were indifferent to the questions of legal ownership, and the evidence, we think, justifies that finding. But it is not surprising that the artificiality of the transaction and the deception that had been practiced led ultimately to conflicting claims of ownership. In 1939 there was a quarrel between Jan and Tom. Tom was discharged. He apologized and was reinstated. Much is made of this, but its chief significance to us seems to lie in the fact that it was merely an incident that led to the inevitable. The war years furnished the immediate occasion. In 1939, Jan, Tom and Marie went to the Americas. In 1941 Jan went to Brazil. After the outbreak of the Second World War, the German occupation of Czechoslovakia resulted in inquiries from the British authorities into the ownership of the Bata enterprise. These inquiries were not satisfactorily answered, and Jan was put on the British and American black lists. Despite the urgent pleading of Muska, Jan (then in South America) stubbornly refused all pertinent information, insisting that the ultimate ownership of Bata lay with a Swiss consortium, and that no disclosure should be made of the real ownership of the Leader shares, which represented ownership and control. The result was, as the Chancellor found, that Tom, then in Canada, succeeded to control of the business almost by default.