evidence: The Philippines was explaining the history and legal basis of its claim over Sabah and the origins of the dispute to the UK government. The UK is party to the dispute because it was responsible for handing Sabah/North Borneo to Malaysia. [...] However, the control over the territory was relinquished to the British, specifically to the British North Borneo Company between 1878 and 1946 under the treaty signed on 4 January, 1878 between the Sultan of Sulu Mahomet Jamal Al Alam and Baron de Overbeck and Alfred Dent as a contract of lease, grant and concession of North Borneo territories for an annual payment of 5,000 dollars. Later on, the British North Borneo Chartered Company surrendered its duties and North Borneo became a British crown colony on 10 July, 1946. The Philippines maintains its territorial claim over Sabah based on the 1878 "Lease Treaty" and based on the historical account that Sabah is a gift from the Sultan of Brunei to the Sultan of Sulu, which is now a region and part of the sovereign territory of the Philippines. The Philippines stands firm that the 1878 Treaty was a Lease and not a "Deed of Cessation" as opposed to the claim and contention of Overbeck and Dent on 22 January, 1878, where the British North Borneo Company presented the said treaty in London saying that the Sultan of Sulu ceded North Borneo to them under their translations and interpretations of the contents of the 1878 Treaty.