Wates and Morgan Sindall have forced three companies using their identity to change their names, following an official complaint.
Wates Services Limited and Wates Contractor Limited were registered at Companies House in August and December 2022 respectively, and Morgan Sindall Limited was registered in January 2023.
The companies are not related to Wates Group or Morgan Sindall Group, and their registration would have prevented top contractors from using the names for the new subsidiaries.
Wates Group applied to the Business Names Tribunal in July to force Wates Contractor and Wates Services to change their names. Morgan Sindall Group submitted its application against Morgan Sindall Limited in May 2023.
The court ruled in favor of Wates Group and Morgan Sindall Group under the Companies Act 2006. The offending companies must change their names and pay £800 each to the CN100 contractors who complained.
The court also ruled that the separate individuals behind each of the infringing business names must “not cause or permit any measure to be taken calculated to cause another business to register under a name that is a offensive name”.
The Business Names Tribunal is part of the government’s Intellectual Property Office and deals with cases where someone registers a business name with the primary aim of preventing an existing business from using that identity.
Businesses can defend themselves if they can show that the name has been adopted in good faith or has been or is intended to be an operating business.
However, none of the offending companies in this case defended themselves.
