Legal Action
In 2005, EasyGroup threatened legal action against a Welsh business which had been trading as EasyMobile since 2003 despite being established some two years before the launch of Stelios' business EasyMobile.com. In 2006 Karl Kahn a London businessman branding Stelios as a "rich bully" obtained a court order against Stelios to prevent him from interfering with his pizza business. Karl Kahn was informed in 2004 that his EasyPizza.co.uk domain was infringing the rights of EasyGroup. Following an acrimonious build-up to the court date, Stelios then pulled out at the last minute, serving a Notice of Discontinuance and Mr Kahn succeeded in getting EasyGroup to sign a consent order covering his costs, estimated at £135,000, and agreeing not to interfere with his business or bring any further court action without the approval of the court. To date, EasyGroup has yet to pay the costs but this has not prevented dozens of companies being threatened by Stelios because the huge costs associated with defending a claim in the High Court have been extremely effective in forcing people to hand over their domains. EasyGroup is currently threatening Northampton based restaurant EasyCurry with action unless it drops its name and signs. EasyCurry has been told to take down its signs by 9am on 22 July 2008 or face a High Court battle. EasyGroup claims that the owners of "easy" domains are "passing off" on its name. However, that legal argument is based on a selective reading of the law which would require the companies to also copy EasyGroup's well-known orange livery and lower-case/upper-case Cooper Black typography, and to make out they are in some way associated with EasyGroup. That is not the case with the majority of "easy" domain name owners.
Stelios has even filed suit with the court against easyJet, the airline he founded, over "easy" branding. easyJet offers travel associated "extras" such as hotel bookings under the "easyJethotels" brand, and car hire under "easyJetcarehire". Stelios's contention was that easyGroup licenced the "easyJet" brand to easyJet plc. primarily for airline use, and that using the brand for hotel and car hire interfered with other easyGroup businesses.
Read more about this topic: Easy Group
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