easyJet’s owner is ‘bullying’ the small Leicestershire company to change its name

A small company in Leicestershire has decided to change its name, logo and hand over its web address after receiving “frightening” letters from the owner of easyJet. EasyTiger Events, as the company was then called, said it feared an “expensive” legal battle with easyGroup after the vast multinational conglomerate sent it a letter setting out potential court action if it did not ” cease and desist’ to use his own. trade name, logo and domain name. It comes after Leicester band Easy Life announced they had changed their name to Hard Life following a similar battle with the giant.

Now known as Tiger Team Events, the South Kilworth-based company, which has three members of staff, received a letter from the global brand’s lawyers in February. In the letter, which was seen by LeicestershireLive, law firm Harbottle and Lewis said the word ‘easy’ in the company’s name and the ‘prominent’ use of the color orange in the branding, “clearly bring to mind the Easy family of brands”. It added that there was a “risk that the relevant public would consider the company’s trade name, (logo) and domain name to be part of our client’s wider family of marks and registrations” and argued that this amounted to a “trademark infringement” and “actionable passing off”, suggesting that Easy Tiger Events was trying to pass itself off as part of the easyGroup.

Sarah Todd, one of the Tiger team principals, said she believed the letter amounted to “bullying tactics”. She said she was “very, very upset” when the company received the first of two letters from easyGroup, although she had initially “thought it was a joke”.

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“The letter is quite obviously written by very smart lawyers and is a bully tactic that scares the crap out of a small company,” said Sarah. “It’s been quite expensive so far, up to £10,000 at the moment. For a small company that is significant. That’s just for the lawyers bills without even going to court.

“They didn’t cave and say, ‘If you don’t change it, we’re threatening court action.’ One of the letters sent to the Tiger team by easyGroup’s lawyers stated that the global brand was entitled to “the delivery of all material in your possession, custody or control that infringes our client’s rights as set out above”, “a permanent injunction to prevent you from providing services under the infringing mark or any similar mark(s) or name(s)” as well as costs and damages, if the company did not comply with its requests.

Easy Tiger was established in 2014 by Sarah and business partner Samantha Davies to help clients find venues to hold meetings, celebrations or conferences. Sarah said the name Easy Tiger Events was chosen because many other company names in the industry “sounded corporate” and they wanted something more “personal”. At the time, Sarah said, they “never thought this would happen.”

Sarah said: “It’s just the bullying tactics they use. They can’t own the word ‘easy’, an adjective for sure.” She said that while they “didn’t think they (easyGroup) would win” a court battle, they “just didn’t want a very expensive lawsuit hanging over us.”

She said they were able to “negotiate” the one-year grace period to change their domain name so they could continue to receive emails through Easy Tiger. Stelios Haji-Ioannou, owner and founder of easyGroup, told LeicestershireLive that his company had been “very generous” in this regard.

“The legal action is by easyGroup Ltd, the creator and owner of the easy family of brands,” Sir Stelios said. “The miracle is that brand thief (Samantha) Jayne Davies has admitted that using a name like Easy Tiger Events infringes our rights and has already signed the attached undertakings to change her company name. We were very generous in offering him this deal and a one-year transition rather than paying us substantial damages for unauthorized use after an expensive court battle. we were going to win.

“There are several court decisions that confirm that we have very strong rights in the light UK orange family of marks. We will continue to take legal action to protect the consumer from being confused that brand thieves such as (Samantha) Jayne Davies are part of the easy brand family, as easyJet does, when in fact they are not a properly paid-up member.”

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