3/6/2025 4:40:25 PM | 3 minute read

Company Name Tribunal Actions: A Review of most recent Defended Actions

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Thomas Hooper

Senior Associate

Get in touch

Thomas Hooper

Senior Associate

If a company registers an identical or similar company name in the UK with Companies House, submitting a complaint with the Company Names Tribunal (“CNT”) can be an effective way to challenge them. To succeed in a CNT action, the following elements are required:

You must have goodwill/reputation in the name you are relying on;
The company names must be the same of sufficiently similar; and
The respondent to the action must not have any defences available to them.

In this article, BrandWrites looks at the most recent defended CNT actions and sets out the key issues, findings, and takeaway points. It also considers the impact, if any, that the recent amendments to the Companies Act 2006 have had on CNT proceedings (discussed here). One of those key changes was the removal of certain defences to the owner of the challenged company, such as those which could be invoked where the respondent company had already been trading under the name or was proposing to do so and had incurred substantial start-up costs or was operating under the name but had become dormant.

After those amendments, the possible defences to a CNT action are now as follows:

Defence No.1: The name was registered before the start of the activities that you are relying on to show you have goodwill/reputation in the name;

Defence No.2: The name was registered in the ordinary course of a company formation business and the company name is available for sale to the Applicant on the standard terms of that business;

Defence No.3: The name was chosen in good faith;

Defence No.4: The interests of the Applicant are not adversely affected to any significant extent.

A company cannot successfully rely on any of the above defences if the complainant (also referred to as the Applicant) can show that the main purpose of registering the company name was to obtain money (or other consideration) from them or to prevent them from registering the name.

Review of recent cases

Case Reference

Summary of key findings and takeaways

20 February 2025,
Neom Company v Neom AI Ltd.

Full decision here.

Applicant: Neom Company.

Respondent: Neom AI Ltd.

Result: Successful.

Conclusion: The CNT action was successful, following the change of company name by the Respondent and the subsequent closing of the Respondent’s company.

No defences in favour of the Respondent applied and the Applicant was entitled to an award of costs in its favour.

30 August 2024, Flexspace No LLP 2 v Flexspace 360 UK Ltd.

Full decision here.

Applicant: Flexspace No LLP 2.

Respondent: Flexspace 360 UK Ltd.

Result: Successful.

Conclusion: The company names were found to be sufficiently similar, with "Flexspace" being the dominant and distinctive element and, in view of the Applicant’s extensive goodwill, consumers were likely to perceive an association between the two entities.

The Respondent was also unable to rely on the defences of (i) good faith as they had not provided any evidence to support this assertion, or (ii) that the interests of the Applicant are not adversely affected to any significant extent, as no evidence was submitted, and the ground was not correctly pleaded in their defence form in any case.

The Applicant was therefore successful and entitled to an award of costs in its favour.

24 July 2024, Ventec NW Ltd v Vent-Tech Ltd.

Full decision here.

Applicant: Ventec NW Ltd.

Respondent: Vent-Tech Ltd.

Result: Successful.

Conclusion: The adjudicator found that Vent-Tech Ltd had goodwill associated with its name and that Ventec NW Ltd’s name was likely to mislead, especially given their involvement in similar industrial ventilation services.

The Respondent’s only defence claimed was that its name was adopted in good faith, but it provided no supporting evidence. The Respondent argued that its company name could not be confusing as it was spelled differently with different corporate colours and pronunciation and as the logo was designed independently and looked very different. These arguments were unsuccessful given the similarities between the names.

The Applicant was therefore successful, and they were entitled to an award of costs in its favour.

Conclusion

We will continue to monitor whether the removal of those defences mentioned above has any impact at all on the outcome of CNT proceedings. However, to date, the removal of those defences would appear to have had little impact.

If you are involved in ongoing proceedings before the CNT, or if you have any questions about the above, please contact your legal advisors.