Norwegian and former bank in legal clash over brand name

Norwegian is being sued by a bank it once owned over whether it has the right to use the word Norwegian in its brand name, while the bank is the two sides’ ongoing card cooperation. Norwegian once owned Bank Norwegian, a financial offshoot established in 2007, but in August 2019 as it encountered snowballing economic travails, it sold its entire 17.5% stake in Norwegian Finans Holding, the entity that owned it, for a total sum of NOK2.22b kroner (US$245m at the time). The buyer was Cidron Xingu Limited, a company indirectly controlled by the Finnish financial group Sampo and Nordic Capital Fund IX, run by the private equity firm Nordic Capital. A brand licensing agreement was put in place as part of the deal, which was completed in October 2019. However, Swedish niche bank Nordax Group acquired Bank Norwegian two years later. Now, it wants to institute a name change to either “Bank Norwegian, a part of Nordax Bank AB” or “Bank Norwegian, a branch of Nordax Bank AB”. The latter descriptor is already used on its credit cards, its website shows. The bank and its parent say this is required under Norwegian law to clarify who the owners are, but the airline Norwegian, which owns the rights to the Norwegian brand, objects to it being associated with another brand, namely Nordax. Norwegian law requires banks to clearly state who owns the business. Bank Norwegian has now sued the airline to obtain a legal clarification, Nordax Bank’s report for the first quarter of 2023, disclosed last week, reveals.<br/>