Bell Telephone Company companies and to provide further funds for expansion of its overall telephone infrastructure. On April 17, 1880, National Bell was split into the American Bell Telephone Company, led by Theodore Vail as general manager, and with the International Bell Telephone Company (IBTC) as a holding company for its international subsidiaries. IBTC's first non-North American subsidiary was the Bell Telephone Manufacturing Company (BTM), established by Hubbard at Antwerp, Belgium, in 1882. The Bell System's Bell Telephone Company of Canada subsidiary, wholly owned by the National Bell, had been established two years earlier. Alexander Graham Bell's ten shares of Bell Telephone Company
Elisha Gray and Alexander Bell telephone controversy appointed a special committee to investigate the Pan-Electric matter and Garland's actions. The April 8 affidavit was published in the "Washington Post" on May 22, 1886. Three days later, the Post published a sworn denial from Bell, which was also reprinted in "The Electrical World". Bell swore that he never gave any money to Wilbur, and that "Mr. Wilbur did not show me Gray's caveat of the drawing of it or any portion of either." The theory that Alexander Graham Bell stole the idea of the telephone rests on the similarity between drawings of liquid transmitters in his lab notebook