In a previous story, I provided some background information related to Ian Burrell’s recent widely shared post announcing that he is no longer representing Equiano Rum. The story has since picked up steam in the UK drinks trade press, with articles from Drinks International, The Drinks Business, and Harpers Wine & Spirit.
Much of the attention given to this post focuses on this portion of the post:
…it has come to light that the corresponding trademark was NEVER registered in the company’s name but was purportedly registered by a company controlled by another of our founding director & shareholder.
However, the trademark issue is just one aspect of a larger story, which I outlined in my prior piece. Since then, additional information has come out that sheds new light on the broader story.
Recap
To briefly recap where my prior story left off, per public company filings by Equiano Limited, the directors of Equiano Limited placed the company into administration in May of 2025 due to insolvency issues. During administration, an independent outside firm takes control of the company to protect it from creditors while also seeking the best outcome through restructuring, selling assets, or orderly winding-down. In this case, the creditors being protected include The Rum Experience Company Limited, which Burrell owns.
The three Equiano Limited directors who placed the company into administration were:
Ian Burrel
Aaisha Dadral
Amanda Kakembo
Each held approximately 1/6th of Equiano’s shares. However, a fourth shareholder, Oliver Bartlam, also owned 1/6th of the company’s shares. Bartlam appears at the end of my earlier article:
…in July 2025, Oliver Bartlam, one of the founders and a large shareholder of Equiano, as well as one of Equiano’s former directors, registered a new company in the UK, Equiano Global Ltd.
I found this curious but couldn’t find any more information about this new company, other than its ownership by Bartlam. (Bartlan resigned as a director of Equiano Limited in 2022.)
Rebuttal
The day after my first Equiano article appeared, The Drinks Business published “Equiano responds: ‘Ian was a director throughout, he knew the IP ownership position.” This article doesn’t mention Bartlam by name, but in it, an unnamed Equiano Global Limited spokesperson is quoted:
In May this year, the directors of Equiano Ltd (Ian Burrell, Amanda Kakembo and Aaisha Dadral) initiated an administration process due to a significant funding gap. During this process, it became apparent that the company did not own all intellectual property and trademark rights. The IP had in fact been secured by the company’s design agency, something that all directors, including Ian, were aware of well before administration.
Following this, Ian assembled a syndicate of new investors that sought to negotiate and secure the business and assets of Equiano Limited whilst also attempting to purchase the IP and take full control of the brand.
The administrators [Quantuma], acting independently and in the best interests of creditors, ultimately rejected their proposal to purchase the assets of Equiano Limited and instead accepted an offer from Equiano Global Limited, a company backed by existing shareholders.
In simpler terms, the Equiano Global Limited spokesperson said that two of Equiano Limited’s large shareholders (Burrell and Bartlam) made competing proposals to the administration company (Quantuma) to purchase the company’s assets. Quantuma selected Bartlam’s proposal over Burrell’s investor syndicate.
If this is true, then Equiano Global Limited may now, or shortly, own the Equiano brand and its associated assets. Naturally, there may be more twists in the story still to come.
Be that as it may, the public face of the brand (Burrell) is no longer on board, and the brand’s primary rum supplier has said on social media that it won’t supply more rum to the brand. Likewise, numerous rum bars and rum industry personalities have shared that they will no longer support the brand. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out.
While I have immense respect for Ian Burrell, as an IP attorney I will make two comments:
1) The ownership of a U.S. registered trademark is a public record easily accessible by anyone over the internet. In this case, at:
https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=88322095&caseSearchType=US_APPLICATION&caseType=DEFAULT&searchType=statusSearch
2) It is very common for key intellectual property to placed into a “holding company” with no direct legal relationship to the operating company and for the holding company to license the IP to the operating company. This is done specifically to make sure that the IP is not an asset that can be sold out from under the founders if the operating company goes bankrupt or is otherwise subject to dissolution or sale.
Indeed setting up this sort of structure is one of the very first things I arrange for new companies, and reorganizing into this sort of structure is one of the first things I tell clients who are not already set up this way that they should do.
Now, why the holding company was owned by just one of the partners is a very good question. There may have been a good business reason or it may have been one aspect of the deal among the partners underlying the partnership structure.
Unless one of those things is true then it appears that Ian may just have had very bad lawyers handling his piece of the formation transaction(s). (Arguably it would border on malpractice.)