EasyJet's Sir Stelios threatens to sue Scottish dating agency over name

AN ONLINE dating agency called EasyDate has been threatened with legal action by the owners of budget airline easyJet.

Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou created the brand with his first venture, easyJet, and claims Easydate is taking unfair advantage of the brand's reputation, something the dating agency denies

Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou's easyGroup empire yesterday raised the possibility of action against Easydate in the row over alleged trademark infringement.

The group, which licenses the "easy" name to businesses including easyJet, easyCar and easy- Hotel, claimed EasyDate was trying to pass itself off as being part of the "easy" brand and warned it to change the company name.

Edinburgh-based EasyDate listed on the stock market only in June, but was set up by Bill Dobbie and his Ukrainian business partner Max Polyakov in 2005 and has already built up a base of more than nine million members in the UK and internationally.

But easyGroup said it owned the intellectual property rights for the "easy" family of trademarks and had already been in contact with EasyDate claiming infringement.

Sir Stelios, the founder of easyJet, said: "EasyDate is taking unfair advantage of the strong reputation of my easy brand in order to obtain an undeserved commercial advantage.

"Unless EasyDate stops using its brand and domain name, I will take further action to protect the easy name."

Sir Stelios has been engaged in a long-running dispute with the easyJet board over the airline's growth plans and recently threatened to withdraw the rights to the "easy" brand in a row over punctuality.

The entrepreneur quit the easyJet board in May but his family still holds a combined 38 per cent stake in the low-cost flight operator.

The airline has also been involved in a court battle with Sir Stelios over the use of the licence for non-airline products such as car hire.

Sir Stelios yesterday rejected recent claims by EasyDate in a newspaper report that it had not received any letters from easyGroup over the issue.

Mr Dobbie said earlier this week: "I wouldn't be surprised if I was to get a letter from easyGroup. If we did, I'm sure we'd approach easyGroup with a plan for us to keep the name."

But Sir Stelios said Mr Dobbie was "aware of our claims and has responded to our letter".

"For him to suggest otherwise in the media is completely untrue. I am surprised this sort of statement is coming from a listed company."

EasyDate runs a network of dating sites including cupid.com, datetheuk.com and datingforparents.co.uk.

Last year it expanded outside the UK as part of a plan to target emerging markets and its recent listing will help it grow further in the UK and overseas.

Chief operating officer Mr Polyakov, 32, formerly headed up HitDynamics, which provided web analytics software and was later sold to Hitwise, now Experian.

EasyDate said in a response to the easyGroup allegations that it had "used this name in good faith for over five years without intervention or objection from any party, including easyGroup".

It added that it did not believe there was consumer confusion over its independence from the other easy brands.