Stelios Drops Domain Name Claim Against Easyart.com

by Robin Pilgrim, LawAndTax-News.com, London

15 May 2003

It emerged last week that EasyGroup founder, Stelios Haji-Ioannou has dropped a case against online art vendor, Easyart.com, claiming that with the forthcoming launch of the EasyCinema venture, the company has bigger fish to fry.

EasyGroup last year accused Easyart.com of attempting to pass itself off as part of the Greek entrepreneur's network of businesses, suggesting that in a survey, 6% of consumers had confused the two brands. However, speaking to the UK media, Easyart CEO, Simon Matthews denied that this was the case:

'None of our 20,000 customers has ever shown any sign of getting us confused with Easygroup. Stelios needs to learn to be big enough to co-exist,' he suggested, adding that:

'This was a David and Goliath fight. It is a good day for smaller companies who stand up to bullying tactics from large corporations. We hope this gives hope to many other companies out there who are trading legitimately under the 'Easy' name and who have been threatened by this man.'

EasyGroup has hinted that it may resume the case at some point in the future. However, according to Mr Matthews, this is probably an empty threat, given that under the 'notice of discontinuation' put before the court, the company would need to convince a judge that they have new grounds, in order to resume its suit against the art vendor.

'Stelios has surrendered and we have won,' he announced last week.

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