Bain & Company files lawsuit against Mr. Woods

16 April 2012 Consultancy.uk

Bain & Company, one of the world's most prestigious management consulting firms, has started a lawsuit against the owner of the website BainConsultingGroup.com. According to Bain, the owner (Jim Woods) has infringed Bain's copyright and trademark by using "Bain Consulting" and the website for business purposes.

A check in Whois reveals that the domain BainConsultingGroup.com was registered on January 2, 2012. In February the strategy consulting firm became aware of the registration and started an investigation. On March 1st, the consulting firm sent Woods a formal warning ("cease & desist letter"). On March 5, Woods responded: "Let's see how the continuing negative publicity affects your business. We quite frankly would relish the publicity. If however you wish to buy our rights to the name you may do so for $20,000. Otherwise go to hell." Bain says that, just four minutes later, Woods emailed its in-house attorney and said that if he didn't receive an apology he would initiate a "social media onslaught" against Bain.

Bain Company - Lawsuit

Fast forward to March 27, and Bain sent a third cease & desist letter to Woods. Woods responded with two emails. According to the suit, Woods closed the first email with "You can kiss my black ass". His second email said that any future correspondence from Bain will "be sent to the universe in the form of a blog".

Charges

According to the lawsuit filing from Bain, Woods set up the site to trade on Bain & Company's goodwill. Bain is currently receiving high attention in the U.S. as presidential candidate Mitt Romney has in the past worked for Bain as CEO. The firm also alleges that he essentially copied and paraphrased content from Bain's official web site. Bain also says that Woods lifted text off of other global consulting company web sites. Bain is suing Woods for five items: (1) federal trademark violation (2) unfair competition and false designation of origin (3) federal dilution (4) copyright violation (5) violation of the Anti-cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act.