'Co-op' bank name court stoush begins

NZ Herald

7 Oct, 2014 11:10 PM2 mins to read

Bruce McLachlan, Wellington, chief executive of The Co-operative Bank. Photo / Duncan Brown

The Co-operative Bank is in the High Court today attempting to stop the New Zealand Association of Credit Unions from changing its name to Co-op Money NZ.

Co-op Bank has applied for an interim injunction against the NZACU, which in June announced the intention to rebrand to Co-op Money NZ.

This interim injunction would only be temporary ahead of the dispute being argued more substantially.

In the High Court at Auckland this morning, Co-op Bank lawyer Zane Kennedy said there were obvious similarities between the two names which would cause confusion.

While "co-operative" was a descriptive term, Kennedy told Justice Raynor Asher "The Co-operative Bank" as a name had become distinctive of it.

While NZACU was did not directly compete with Co-op Bank, its members did.

No one else in the financial services sector had traded under "co-operative" or included in "co-operative" in their brand since Co-Op Bank changed its name from PSIS in 2011, Kennedy said this morning.

Co-op Bank had spent $8.7 million on marketing since then, he told the court.

This included recent television adverts of members celebrating the bank making a profit, which Kennedy said had successfully struck "a chord with the public".

"As a consequence the plaintiff has generated reputational goodwill," he told the judge.

Kennedy said his client was not alleging or claiming the monopoly of "co-operative" as a word.

"The plaintiff would not be concerned with the use of cooperative in a branding sense if was attached to sufficient other words that made it clear there was not going to be misrepresentation or confusion with the plaintiff's trading name."