Nestlé has been forced to admit defeat in its attempt to suppress a YouTube video created by Greenpeace.

Last week Nestlé’s lawyers had the hard-hitting video, which depicts a man eating an orang-utan’s finger contained within a Kit Kat wrapper, removed from the site as it was a breach of copyright.

But Greenpeace re-hosted the video on rival site Vimeo, and posted on Twitter: “@nestle got our ad pulled off YouTube. Now it's on Vimeo. Want to get your lawyers onto that?”

Following the success of the video on Vimeo, which has now received 267,000 views, the video has reappeared on YouTube and racked up 110,000 there.

A spokeswoman for Nestlé said: “We decided not to challenge it this time as it has already been widely seen.”

Writing on its website, Greenpeace said: “Didn't Obi-Wan Kenobi say something about being struck down and coming back more powerful than before?”

The video is designed to raise awareness of Greenpeace’s claim that Nestle is using palm oil in its products that is produced in areas where the orang-utans' rainforests once grew.

Nestlé has denied the claims.