Intercontinental Addis Ordered to Change Name
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia – After a six year legal battle, the Lideta Federal High Court ruled in favor of Intercontinental Hotels Corporation (IHG), ordering JH Simex Plc to cease using the trade name ‘Intercontinental Addis’.
The international chain sued both J.H. Simex and Semachew Kebede for using a trade name to attain unlawful enrichment.
The court also ordered the hotel, located in Kazanches, to stop using the name ‘Intercontinental Addis’ in advertisements, other equipment and also forfeit their website.
The court also ordered J.H. Simex Plc to pay 750,000 birr in compensation to Intercontinental Hotels Corporation with a nine percent interest. The court was unable to find legal documents needed to ascertain the hotel’s actual profits from tax offices and auditors since the hotel began operating.
Eyob Hagos, lawyer for Intercontinental Hotels Corporation told Capital that the compensation payment was unfair.
“Since 2006 Intercontinental Addis earned millions of USD in profit by using our trade name. Through simple mathematics one can see that they got a lot of money for their rooms. However, the court gave us a paltry sum of less than one million birr. We asked the court to call the relevant tax office to find out their actual revenue but the court did not want to do that,” he added.
Read more at: Capital Ethiopia
