Business name stolen

money_saver_4

I wonder if someone can help me. One of our ex-contractors has set up a business just yards away from us and is using our business name on his web site.

Is there any way we can stop this contractor without running up huge legal bills?

Also, we suspect this contractor might be soliciting our clients. Any advice how to stop the contractor from doing this? There was a restrictive covenant in the contract between us, but from what we understand, it's difficult to defend such covenants in court.

Thank you.

bengalknights

Are you a sole trader or ltd company?

Ltd company you could just send cease and desist letter with threat of legal action
Sole trader you might be stuck as its usually a Joe Bloggs T/A Joey Jeans so no legal right to the trading name (good examples being takeaways etc that have exact same names).

money_saver_4

We are an unlimited company. But we started off as a partnership. As we have more than one office, the name of the company is different. Presumably this will work against us?

bengalknights

Ideally you would want to have your trading name registered as limited but with dormant accounts and listed as non trading or showing up as a division of your company.

Equaliser123

No need to register company details. In fact, if it is dormant, it can actually cause a problem to your case as it is not trading and therefore the necessary constituent of 'goodwill' is lacking.

If you have built up goodwill in the name of your business, it is protected by 'passing off'. There is another thread lurking around on here.

bengalknights

Equaliser123 wrote: »

No need to register company details. In fact, if it is dormant, it can actually cause a problem to your case as it is not trading and therefore the necessary constituent of 'goodwill' is lacking.

If you have built up goodwill in the name of your business, it is protected by 'passing off'. There is another thread lurking around on here.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2821346

I think its this one regarding passing off

money_saver_4

Thank you for your responses and for providing a link to the similar thread. I think the difference between our situation and the other thread poster is that they innocently used a similar name. Whereas in our case someone deliberately set themselves up using our name whilst definitely being aware that the name is already used by us and has been for many years and is now we discovered advertising targeting our clients. The intention of this person is clearly not honourable. The information on "passing off" is definitely useful and is probably something we will attempt to pursue. Thank you again.

patman99

Make sure you register the name as a limited company before he does.