The Supreme Court of British Columbia has rejected Bank of Nova Scotia’s bid to dismiss an application from another firm seeking to prevent the bank from using the name Tangerine for its online banking business, which was acquired from ING.
According to a decision from the B.C. Supreme Court dated May 27, the court previously appointed a receiver of a failed business called Tangerine Financial Projects LP and approved the sale of its assets.
The buyer of the assets later resold those assets to RSP Generation LP, which now claims that one of those assets was the name “Tangerine”. Since then, Scotia has adopted “Tangerine” as the new name for its subsidiary, ING Bank of Canada.
RSP, and its general partner, RSP Generation Corp., served a notice of application in the receivership proceeding, seeking to block the bank from using the name “Tangerine”.
The bank applied to the court to strike out RSP’s application, saying that it represents an abuse of process, and that it should be struck out before being heard.
The B.C. Supreme Court however decided that it is not obvious that RSP cannot succeed.
“In my view, it will be for a judge hearing RSP’s application to determine whether and to what extent the order applies to a party in the position of the bank and whether the Tangerine name is part of the ‘property’ acquired by RSP. That determination must be made on the basis of evidence, including the evidence that was before the court when the order was made,” said Judge Nathan Smith in the court’s written decision.
As a result, the court dismissed the bank’s application.