The British Columbia Court of Appeal has upheld an appeal brought by Toronto-based Bank of Nova Scotia in a dispute over the bank’s right to use the name Tangerine for its online banking subsidiary.
Scotiabank launched the appeal after a lower court dismissed the bank’s motion to strike an application brought by Vancouver-based RSP Generation LP, which sought to block Scotiabank from changing the name of its subsidiary to Tangerine from ING Bank of Canada.
RSP Generation claimed it acquired the rights to use the name Tangerine in the financial services sector when the firm acquired the assets of Tangerine LP from a receivership proceeding. RSP Generation sought to assert its rights to the name in the receivership proceedings by filing a notice in those proceedings seeking an order enjoining Scotiabank and ING Bank from using the name.
Scotiabank brought a motion to strike the lower court notice, which was dismissed by the Supreme Court of British Columbia (SCBC) in May 2014. However, Scotiabank then appealed the SCBC ruling and the appeal court has now ruled in favour of Scotiabank. In its decision dated Aug. 13, the appeal court found that RSP Generation’s application seeking relief against the bank is “an abuse of process.”
The court found that “RSP [Generation] seeks injunctive relief in a receivership proceeding against a non-party where the relief sought does not relate to a justiciable issue between the parties to that proceeding.”