11
October 2018
Rochdale translation firm
ordered to pay more than £240,000 for diverting third of government language
contractor's website traffic
A Rochdale interpreting service that set up
bogus websites to mimic a world-leading language translation company managed to
divert a third of its internet traffic for almost three years, it was revealed
in court on Wednesday.
Little-known Language Empire Ltd masqueraded as
the UK government’s go to interpreter and translation provider, thebigword, at
two websites 'specifically designed' to syphon off business from the global
contractor.
During 34 months of passing itself off as the
leading language business it is believed Language Empire Ltd landed lucrative
translation contracts from the NHS, police forces, civil service departments
and blue-chip companies worth tens of thousands of pounds.
In a landmark judgement at London’s
Intellectual Property Enterprise Court, the Rochdale-based business - based at
Deeplish House on Milkstone Street - was ordered to pay double the damages
sought by thebigword, after a judge agreed it made “significant sales” by
converting enquiries from the websites.
The court heard that once the websites were
taken down after being live for two years and ten months, thebigword – which
lists on its website several top 100 global brands, government departments, UK
police forces and NHS trusts as clients – saw an instant 50% rise in its
website traffic.
Judge Melissa Clarke described the rise in
traffic as “the best quantitative evidence I have of the effect of the websites
on the claimant’s business.” And she described it as a “diversion of a
significant amount of the claimant’s potential business”.
She told Yasar Zaman, CEO of Language Empire,
that the domain names bigwordtranslation.co.uk and thebigwordtranslation.co.uk,
bought on his debit card and developed into bootleg websites, were
“specifically designed” to capture potential customers searching online for
thebigword.
The imposter websites went live during the
second half of 2014, the court heard, with logos using the words ‘The Big Word
Translation’, and content that read: 'Welcome to The Big Word Translation, the
right place for professional translation services of the highest standard.
Delivering translations in over 400 different languages and offering a 24 hour
service has made us one of the UK’s most popular providers of translation
services'.
The sites also included calls-to-action that
offered a 'Free no obligation quote', a copyright notice '© 2014 The Big Word
Translation. All rights reserved' and a contact form that delivered fresh
enquiries directly to the websites’ developer and SEO ‘expert’ Rajeev Singh,
who Zaman hired to them set up.
Singh funnelled enquiries back to Yasar Zaman
through an email address belonging to his brother, Nasir Zaman. From there the
diverted business was converted into sales, likely at the same 75% success rate
that thebigword enjoyed, Judge Clarke asserted.
After uncovering the sham sites thebigword sent
pre-action correspondence through intellectual property lawyers, Virtuoso Legal
of Leeds and London, on 24 February 2017 alleging infringement of trade marks
and passing off, to which Language Empire made no response. The firm did, the
court ascertained, take the websites down on Yasar Zaman’s instruction shortly
after. […]
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