Easyfundraising has won a copyright infringement case against easyGroup after being embroiled in a “protracted and expensive” legal battle.
easyGroup started legal proceedings against easyfundraising in February 2022 for having “easy” in its name, alleging it was infringing intellectual property rights.
Yesterday, the High Court ruled in easyfundraising’s favour, concluding that “there is no infringement of the claimant’s marks by the defendants nor any passing off”.
James Moir, chief executive of easyfundraising, told Civil Society that the legal battle had cost his company “hundreds of thousands of pounds” but he added that he was “delighted” by the ruling.
easyGroup, parent company of easyJet, is planning to appeal the judgment “immediately”.
Claims dismissed
easyGroup accused easyfundraising of infringing some of its trademarks on several occasions starting in November 2005 as the former has long considered that every “easy” mark is distinctive of its group.
In his judgment, judge Fancourt said “easy” is “a common descriptive adjective in everyday use” which was not “immediately redolent of a specific brand” as at 2005.
“The matter would be quite different, even at that time, if [the first defendant] used the distinctive colours and font that the easy+ brands used, but that isn’t the case,” he said.
“Without the distinctive orange colour scheme and font, there would be little if any visual connection to easyJet.”
There is no evidence that easyfundraising “obtained any unfair advantage in the establishment of its business as a result of its use of the word ‘easy’” as there was never a risk of confusion for the average consumer.
Fancourt added: “There’s simply no persuasive evidence of any damage caused or likely to be caused. If it was likely to be caused, it would have been caused by now, given the huge expansion in [the first defendant]’s business since 2015.
“However, none is identified by the claimant, despite the fact that [the first defendant] and easyJet have co-existed for 19 years, with easyJet advertising on easyfundraising’s platform for 12 of those years.”
Fancourt concluded that “if there had been a real concern about damage to the repute of the easy+ brands or the distinctiveness of the marks, the claimant would have brought this claim in 2012, and not waited for 10 years to do so”.
easyfundraising: ‘It’s been hugely expensive’
Moir said: “Our decision to not back down against easyGroup’s ridiculous claims and tactics has been entirely vindicated.
“This whole case has taken up so many months of management and business time that could have been far better spent on our core business of helping charities and good causes raise as much money as possible.”
He told Civil Society that the legal battle cost his company “many high hundreds of thousands of pounds”, with the amount spent on legal fees possibly amounting to £1m.
“It’s been hugely expensive,” he said.
easyGroup: ‘We’ll appeal the judgment immediately’
easyGroup said it would appeal the judgment and continue to challenge easyfundraising’s “misleading charity claims”.
Stelios Haji-Ioannou, creator and owner of easyGroup, said: “We’re disappointed with this decision which has a number of contradictions and will be appealing this judgment immediately.
“Irrespective of [yesterday]’s ruling, our legal action has successfully de-masked easyfundraising.org.uk false marketing as a charity when in fact they’re a highly profitable organisation with less than 13% of proceeds going to genuine registered charities.
“We’ll continue our challenge which we believe to be in the interest of the UK consumer and the UK’s real registered charities.”
Moir told Civil Society that the easyfundraising platform is open to good causes “in the wider sense” so 13% is the volume of registered charities versus other good causes on the platform such as grassroots sports teams and animal sanctuaries.
“So, if we had 100 entities registered on the platform, 13 would be registered charities and 87 would be other good causes,” he said.
“All of those won’t be counted in the official volume of registered charities because there are lots of other types of classification of good cause. We have a huge number of those that sit on the platform.
“Now, if you look at the distribution of money, it’s slightly different. It’s 30% to 70% because of the breadth of the charities.
“Typically, if they are bigger, they’ll attract a bit more money. So, 13% in terms of the volume, the absolute number and 30% in terms of the amount of money when we look at all the donations we give out.”
Charity Commission’s role
In April, the Charity Commission wrote to Moir, saying it had “been made aware of concerns about the operation of the company as a professional fundraiser and in relation to charitable funds that may be held on trust by easyfundraising Ltd for charities, and damage to public trust and confidence”.
It asked Moir to answer questions relating to easyfundraising’s practice of holding funds, potentially misleading information and requirements of the Charities Act 1992.
For instance, on potentially misleading information, the regulator said it had reviewed the company’s website which states that easyfundraising is a for-profit, private company.
However, it said “there are also statements which could be seen as misleading, including that ‘easyfundraising is the UK’s biggest charity shopping site’”.
Moir said he has “an ongoing dialog with the Commission” while the regulator is determining whether it has a role to play in this.
“We’ve some really good, constructive dialog back and forth. They’ve asked us some questions, we’ve answered all those and are still waiting for them to come back to us,” Moir added.
“I’d hope that we’ll get some resolution from them soon but we said we’re really happy to comply.”
A spokesperson for the regulator confirmed that it continues to assess this matter, working closely with the Fundraising Regulator.
“We can confirm we have received correspondence raising concerns about a fundraising platform called easyFundraising.
“We’re currently reviewing the information available to us to determine if there is a role for the Commission. As part of this, we have written to easyfundraising.”
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