Decision

Decision on CrowdStrike Holdings Ltd

Updated 24 August 2022

Order under the Companies Act 2006

In the matter of application No. 3640

By CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc., and CrowdStrike, Inc.,

For a change of company name of registration

No. 13138098

Background

1. The company name CROWDSTRIKE HOLDINGS LTD has been registered since 15 January 2021 under number 13138098. The Companies House website describes the primary respondent’s “Nature of business (SIC)” as “62020 - Information technology consultancy activities, 62090 - Other information technology service activities, 63110 - Data processing, hosting and related activities, 64209 - Activities of other holding companies not elsewhere classified.” Mrs Andrea Vendrinsky is the primary respondent’s sole director.

2. By an application filed on 29 September 2021, CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc., and CrowdStrike, Inc., (jointly “the applicant”) applied for a change of name of this registration under the provisions of section 69(1) of the Companies Act 2006 (“the Act”); the applicant is represented by DLA Piper UK LLP (“DLA”).

3. The applicant explains that the names associated with it which caused it to make the application are “CROWDSTRIKE”, “CROWDSTRIKE HOLDINGS, INC”, “CROWDSTRIKE, INC” and “CROWDSTRIKE UK LIMITED”.

4. In relation to “goodwill or reputation”, the applicant states that “The name CROWDSTRIKE is a well-known business throughout the world and has been promoted internationally for a good number of years”, adding that the applicant is “a leading cybersecurity technology business protecting customers from cyber threats by leveraging its Security Cloud to stop breaches. CloudStrike provides cloud-delivered solutions for endpoint and cloud workload protection.”

5. The applicant states that it has used the CROWDSTRIKE name since at least as early as September 2011 and operates in a range of countries including the UK. It states it spends “tens of millions of dollars each year on global advertising in connection with the CROWDSTRIKE brand”, with its UK subsidiary, CrowdStrike UK Limited, incurring a total of £3.6m in advertising costs in the years 2019 and 2020. It is stated that “CrowdStrike has been active on the Internet for many years and, in particular, actively operates www.crowdstrike.com (registered on 7 June 2010) and www.crowdstrike.co.uk (registered on 23 February 2012).” It states that it “employs many individuals in the UK”, adding that it has “worked and/or continues to work with a large number of clients globally including, but not limited to, Mercedes AMG-Formula One Team, Credit Suisse, Commercial Bank of Qatar, TransPak, Inc, Goldman Sachs, among many others.” Net revenues in the UK for the fiscal years ending January 2019, 2020 and 2021 amounted to £96.4m. It states “the CROWDSTRIKE trade mark and name, has received a wealth of publicity globally”, adding:

The CROWDSTRIKE brand has high visibility in the UK with its global partnership since 2019 with the Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 team, and its UK TV advertising campaign featuring world champion driver, Lewis Hamilton.

6. The applicant has, it states, “been recognised with a number of awards globally…” and examples of such awards are provided. The applicant also provides details of a number of UK, EU and WIPO trade mark registrations which it owns, all of which feature the word CROWDSTRIKE.

7. It is stated that the company name is objected to because, inter alia, the dominant element of the company name is identical to the CROWDSTRIKE trade mark and that use of the company name is likely to cause detriment to the distinctive character of, inter alia, the CROWDSTRIKE trade marks. It is stated that members of the public and trade are likely to be misled as to the origins of the company’s services and to wrongly believe they originate from the applicant. Although the applicant also refers to suspicions it has regarding the motivation behind the incorporation of the primary respondent, it is not necessary to record those suspicions here.

8. Having indicated it is claiming costs, in reply to the following question which appears on the application form “Did you warn the company that if it did not change its name that you would start legal proceedings against it? If yes, when did you warn the company”, the applicant states:

No, the decision was taken not to contact the company given the facts around this case…and the reasonable concern and conclusion of the applicant and its representatives that that this may result in further actions being taken by the company and/or director which could harm the applicant.

9. A copy of the application was sent to the primary respondent’s registered office on 17 November 2021, in accordance with rule 3(2) of the Company Names Adjudicator Rules 2008 (“the rules”). The copy of the application was sent by Royal Mail “Signed For” service and also by standard mail. The primary respondent was allowed until 17 January 2022 to file a defence on Form CNA2 accompanied by the official fee of £150. I note that letter contained the following:

If you choose not to file a form CNA 2 and the £150 fee the adjudicator may treat the application as not being opposed and may make an order under section 73(1) of the Companies Act 2006.

10. On the same date, the Tribunal wrote to Mrs Vendrinsky, to inform her that the applicant had requested that she be joined to the proceedings as a co-respondent; Mrs Vendrinsky was allowed until 17 December 2021 to comment upon that request.

11. Mrs Vendrinsky responded to the above in an email dated 16 December 2021 (attached to which was a letter dated 17 November 2021 which also contains a reference to “14. DEC. 2021”). The letter begins:

we received your letter your letter and application form…

12. Inter alia, Mrs Vendrinsky further states:

• we were trying to contact daily basis the application representative: DLA Piper UK LLP…but with no success, application representative is permanently unavaible for phone calls, the company is not responding at all, Look like the company is not-contact company;
  
  
• …DLA Piper UK LLP has not included notarized power of attorney from applicant…Therefore we would like to see their signed, notarized power of attorney otherwise we can say their application is invalid;
  
  
• DLA Piper is writing in the application not valid and untrue statement with any relevant evidence, which can be considered as speculative, targeted and illegal and unworthy to my for my personality as a company director and my social status.

The above comment relates to the suspicions mentioned by the applicant in its application. Once again, there is no need for me to record these comments here.

13. Mrs Vendrinsky goes on to state:

We can only consider only one think for relevant in aplicant Aplication think, that we have in our company name word: CROWDSTRIKE as this world in under Trademark of applicant. We did not choose this name in order to damage this brand, but unknowingly, because we didn’t know about any existence of the company Crowdstrike Holding and about the Trademark of of the name Crowdstrike, even the Company House itself has no objections by registering our company in register.

Therefore we consider for relevant to have a suggestions to applicant or application representative:

1.) We can change our company name, to a different name for example :,, CROWDSTRIKEHOLDINGS LTD” and application representative or applicant has to paid us all relative cost necessary for the change. There is not any trademark for word,, CROWDSTRIKEHOLDINGS‘’.

2.) We can change our company name, to a different name for example:,, CROWNSTRIKE HOLDING LTD” and application representative or applicant has to paid us all relative cost necessary for the change and compensation money of 10 000 Pounds.

3.) We can change our company name, to a different name for example,, CROWNSTRIKE HOLDINGS LTD‘’ and application representative or applicant has to paid us all relative cost necessary for the change and compensation money of 10 000 Pounds.

14. DLA responded to the above in a letter to the Tribunal dated 21 December 2021 in which, inter alia, it indicates (i) it has no record of missed calls from Mrs Vendrinsky, adding “…would be happy to discuss the matter with Mr Vendrinsky”, (ii) their client “has engaged us to represent them in this matter” and there is no requirement for DLA “to have in place a notarised power of attorney”, (iii) Mrs Vendrinsky’s offer to change the name on the basis indicated is not acceptable to the applicant, and (iv) the applicant is happy to consider alternative names if they are put forward “within 2 business days of this letter”.

15. On 6 January 2022, the Tribunal received a further email from Mrs Vendrinsky (again accompanied by a letter dated 17 November 2021 but headed “”Answear to yor your letter NUMBER 2).” Mrs Vendrinsky repeats many of the comments contained in her previous email/letter and indicates that because of holidays/limited availability of staff/covid, it is not possible to respond to emails in 2 days. She further states:

Therefore we consider for relevant to have a seconmd suggestions to applicant or application representative , but they need to submit avalid application first:

1. A) We can change our company name, to a different name for example: ,, CROWDSTRIKEHOLDING LTD‘’ and application representative or applicant has to paid us all relative cost necessary for the change. There is not any trademark for word,,CROWDSTRIKEHOLDING‘’.

2.B ) We can change our company name, to a different name for example: ,, CROWNSTRIKE HOLDING LTD‘’ and application representative or applicant has to paid us all relative cost necessary for the change and compensation money of 20 000 Pounds. There is not any trademark for word,, CROWNSTRIK HOLDING‘’.

3.C) We can change our company name, to a different name for example

,, CROWNSTRIKE HOLDINGS LTD‘’ and application representative or applicant has to paid us all relative cost necessary for the change and compensation money of 20 000 Pounds. There is not any trademark for word ,,CROWNSTRIKE HOLDINGS,,

4.C) Based on your invalid application we can wait till application representative will provide legal proof that they are legitimate application representative of aplicant. So far they didn’t provide any notarized power of attorney or any relevant documents which we were requesting.

5.C) so far these application is invalid,, if the DLA piper is requesting from us change Our company name to different one we can do it for cost of 20 000 Pounds, after they make this official request and sent money on our account we can change it.

Please let us know if you agree with our suggestions, and which options did you choose, all other suggestions will be more expensive to you , if you ll not agree with those another five options. We hope you finally choose one of your suggestions and we can start to do all necessary steps to change our company name.

16. DLA responded to the above in a letter dated 12 January 2022, in which it stated:

We note the “compensation” for the names changes that is now being requested has increased from £10,000 to £20,000. We confirm this amount and the suggestions are not acceptable to our client. There is no basis to suggest our client should be paying any money.

17. On 9 February 2022, the parties were advised that as no defence had been received to the application the adjudicator may treat the application as not being opposed. As no comments were received from Mrs Vendrinsky in relation to the applicant’s request to join her to the proceedings as a co-respondent, she was joined to the proceedings and made jointly and severally liable with the primary respondent for costs. The parties were allowed until 23 February 2022 to request a hearing in relation to these matters, if they so wished.

18. On 20 February 2022, the Tribunal received an email from Mrs Vendrinsky in which she states:

We already had correspondence and we have recieved letter that we didn’t reply to applicant. We are defending here two months, can you be so kind can you tell why our correspondence disappeared?

We again submitting the correspondence.

Can you be so kind can you fix ASAP the issue which you made?

We are very disappointed with such a services Attached is:

• last recieved letter from your colleagues
  
  
• first submitted letter
  
  
• second submitted letter
  
  
• form Cna 2
  
  
• form Cna 4.

19. The Forms CNA2 and CNA4 (“Request for a hearing to be appointed”) attached to the email were completed by Mrs Vendrinsky. On 23 February 2022, the Tribunal wrote to Mrs Vendrinsky confirming the previous correspondence had been received and sought to establish the payment methods and payment references for each of the above mentioned Forms. Mrs Vendrinsky responded in an email dated 24 February 2022, in which, inter alia, she stated:

Why we would to pay, we don’t have any problems, we claiming payment for those services from the illegal co applicant DLA Piper. DLA Piper is daily is using illegal attack to my person, we would to also Ask for police and international investigation, while this is illegal threatening to company and my personality. we will not pay you any additional fees. We payd you over card search under the reference CROWDSTRIKE … maybe bank screw up.

…. We applied over email, you ignored our replies as see the written email correspondence was sent to us as we applied over email , nobody sent us email back till now.

We are asking all other correspondence sent us via email . While we are on sick leave and leave of absence from work because of COVID . We will be able to work after 10.3.2022.

We are claiming all the payment from DLA piper, because they are laying only and treating us. We are also claiming immediate payment for our attorneys - 1000€ to our and time consumption fees 700 eur to our company….

20. Following a further enquiry from the Tribunal sent by email to Mrs Vendrinsky on 28 February 2022, on 10 March 2022, having stated: “…We are in quatantane on sickleave, sorry for later reply…”, Mrs Vendrinsky provided the payment reference for the Form CNA2.

21. On 25 March 2022, the Tribunal wrote to the primary respondent/Mrs Vendrinsky. The letters were sent by the Royal Mail’s “Signed For” service and also by first class post. The letter read:

Your email of 10 March 2022 refers.

In the official letter of 17 November 2021 sent to the primary respondent, the Tribunal stated:

If you wish to file a defence, you should complete form CNA 2 (notice of defence) and return it within two months of the date of this letter, that is on or before 17 January 2022. This is in accordance with rules 3(3) and 3(4) of the Company Names Adjudicator Rules 2008. A fee of £150 must accompany form CNA 2 or paid before the expiry of the deadline for the filing of form CNA 2.

In a letter of the same date, you were allowed until 17 December 2021 to comment upon the applicant’s request to join you to the proceedings. Although the Tribunal received an email from you dated 16 December 2021 (in which, in an attachment to the email dated 14 December 2021, you confirm “we received your letter and application form”) and a further email from you dated 6 January 2022, no Form CNA2 was filed by the deadline set and no comments were received on the joining request.

As a consequence, on 9 February 2022, the Tribunal wrote to the primary respondent indicating that no Form CNA2 had been received and it was allowed until 23 February 2022 to consider requesting a hearing. In a letter of the same date, you were joined to the proceedings as a co-respondent and made jointly and severally liable with the primary respondent for costs of the proceedings. You were also allowed until 23 February to request a hearing.

In an email from you dated 20 February 2022, you filed Forms CNA2 and CNA4; your name appears in both Forms, both of which are incomplete. Although the Form CNA4 was filed by the due date of 23 February 2022 and indicated that the official fee of £100 had been paid using a debit or credit card, investigations within the Tribunal have revealed that was not the case. As to date no fee has been filed in relation to the Form CNA4, the Tribunal intends to take no further action in relation to this Form.

As for the Form CNA2, the Tribunal has now established that the fee of £150 that ought to have accompanied the Form was actually filed on 24 February 2022. However, before the Tribunal can consider whether any appropriately amended Form CNA2 should be admitted into the proceedings (see below), a period of 14 days from the date of this letter is allowed for you to file a witness statement (and any supporting exhibits you consider appropriate), explaining why the Form CNA2/fee was not filed by the deadline set in the official letter of 17 November 2021. Your witness statement should be filed on or before 7th April 2022. Guidance on completing a witness statement can be found at…

Within the same timeframe, it will also be necessary for you to file an amended Form CNA2 to (i) include the name of the company in box 3, and (ii) include a signature (wet or electronic) and a date (of the amended Form CNA2) in box 5.

Any witness statement/amended Form CNA2 filed should be copied to DLA Piper UK LLP, who are then allowed a period of 14 days from receipt of same in which to comment.

At the conclusion of those periods the Adjudicator will consider any witness statement/amended Form CNA2 filed/comments received and issue a preliminary view indicating the next steps in the proceedings.

IF NOTHING IS RECEIVED FROM YOU BY THE DEADLINE SET, THE ADJUDICATOR WILL CONSIDER MAKING AN ORDER UNDER SECTION 73(1) OF THE COMPANIES ACT 2006.

A copy of this letter together with the Forms CNA2 and CNA4 submitted by you on 20 February 2022 have been copied to DLA Piper UK LLP (for information purposes only).

22. Although a review of the Royal Mail’s website indicates that all of the letters sent by “Signed For” post were delivered on 28 March 2022, the Tribunal received no response from the primary respondent/Mrs Vendrinsky either by the deadline set or by the date of issuing this decision.

Decision

23. The relevant rules are as follows:

3(3) The adjudicator shall specify a period within which the primary respondent must file its defence.

(4) The primary respondent, before the end of that period, shall file a counter-statement on the appropriate form, otherwise the adjudicator may treat it as not opposing the application and may make an order under section 73(1).

7(1) The adjudicator may extend (or further extend) any period which has been specified under any provision of these Rules even if the period has expired.

(2) Any party can request an extension of any time period specified under any provision of these Rules.

(3) Any request for a retrospective extension must be filed before the end of the period of 2 months beginning with the date the time period in question expired.

(4) Any request made under paragraph (2) shall be made on the appropriate form and shall include reasons why the extra time is required. A request for a retrospective extension shall also include reasons why the request is being made out of time.

Overview and chronology of events

24. It is clear from the above background that the primary respondent/Mrs Vendrinsky received the official letters of 17 November 2021 (paragraph 11 above refers). The official letter sent to the primary respondent made it absolutely clear that if a defence was to be filed, a Form CNA2 accompanied by the official fee of £150 needed to be filed by 17 January 2022. Similarly, it was made clear to Mrs Vendrinsky that she had until 17 December 2021 to comment on the applicant’s request that she be joined to the proceedings as a co-respondent.

25. Although Mrs Vendrinsky wrote to the Tribunal and DLA on 16 December 2021 and 6 January 2022 making various comments on the contents of the Form CNA1 and offering to change the company name if the applicant met the cost of the change of name and paid to the primary respondent “compensation” of £10k (6 December 2021) and £20k (6 January 2022) respectively, the submission of these comments did not relieve the primary respondent of the requirement to file a Form CNA2 and fee if it wanted to defend the application. In addition, there is nothing in the emails received from Mrs Vendrinsky which indicated she took issue with her being joined to the proceedings as a co-respondent and, as noted above, she is the primary respondent’s sole director and it is from her all correspondence has originated.

26. In view of the above, on 9 February 2022, the Tribunal wrote to the primary respondent/Mrs Vendrinsky explaining that no Form CNA2 and fee had been filed by the deadline set. The primary respondent/Mrs Vendrinsky were allowed until 23 February 2022 to file a Form CNA4 accompanied by the official fee of £100 to request a hearing be appointed. Although a Form CNA4 was filed on 20 February 2022, as the Form was not accompanied by the official fee and as no fee has ever been received in this regard, the approach adopted in the official letter of 25 March 2022 in relation to this Form (i.e. to take no further action) was, in my view, clearly correct.

27. That leaves the Form CNA2 completed by Mrs Vendrinsky to be considered. I begin by noting that the primary respondent did not file a Form CNA5 (“Request for an extension of time”) and official fee of £100 which would have allowed the late filing of the Form CNA2 to be considered under the provisions of rules 7(3) and (4) – see paragraph 23 above. I further note that in response to the following question which appears on the Form, “State which of the allegations in the statement of grounds you agree and which you deny”, it is stated: “I don’t agree with all statement, co applicant is using not thrue statement.” The defence contains many of the comments made in earlier correspondence and repeats the offer to change the company name if the applicant is willing to meet the costs associated with changing the name and pay £20k compensation. I note that in its Form CNA2, the primary respondent indicates it is relying upon all the defences available to it under section 69(4) of the Act.

28. Having received a late filed Form CNA2 and fee with no request for a retrospective extension of time and no explanation as to why the Form was filed out of time, in its letter of 25 March 2022, the Tribunal allowed the primary respondent until 7 April 2022 to file a witness statement explaining why the Form/fee was not filed by the deadline set and the primary respondent was warned that if nothing was received from it, the adjudicator would consider making an order under section 73(1) of the Act.

29. As the primary respondent has elected not to respond to that invitation, I have no information on which to base the exercise of any discretion under rules 3(4) or 7(1) and, in those circumstances, I decline to do so.

30. Therefore, in accordance with section 73(1) of the Act, I make the following order:

(a) CROWDSTRIKE HOLDINGS LTD shall change its name within one month of the date of this order to one that is not an offending name;

(b) CROWDSTRIKE HOLDINGS LTD and Mrs Andrea Vendrinsky each shall:

(i) take such steps as are within their power to make, or facilitate the making, of that change;

(ii) not cause or permit any steps to be taken calculated to result in another company being registered with a name that is an offending name.

31. In accordance with Section 73(3) of the Act, this order may be enforced in the same way as an order of the High Court or, in Scotland, the Court of Session.

32. In any event, if no such change is made within one month of the date of this order, I will determine a new company name as per section 73(4) of the Act and will give notice of that change under section 73(5) of the Act.

33. All respondents including individual co-respondents have a legal duty under Section 73(1)(b)(ii) of the Act not to cause or permit any steps to be taken calculated to result in another company being registered with an offending name; this includes the current company. Non-compliance may result in an action being brought for contempt of court and may result in a custodial sentence.

Costs

34. The following appeared in the official letter of 17 November 2021 sent to the primary respondent:

If you decide not to defend your company name, the application will normally succeed. A decision in favour of the applicant will normally include an award of costs in favour of the applicant, provided costs have been requested by the applicant.

If you inform the tribunal that you did not receive adequate notice that an application would be made before it was filed, the tribunal will normally not award costs to the applicant. If you are not defending the application and you consider that you did not receive adequate notification from the applicant before the filing of the application, you should inform the tribunal on or before the date for the filing of the defence.

35. In its Form CNA1, the applicant requested an award of costs. Although the applicant has been successful, as I noted in paragraph 8 above, the applicant did not contact the primary respondent before launching its application. Also as indicated above, that would normally mean that the applicant would not be entitled to an award of costs. However, it is palpably clear that had the applicant contacted the primary respondent before making its application, it would have been met with an offer to change the company name on the basis mentioned in Mrs Vendrinsky’s emails of 16 December 2021 and 6 January 2022. However, Mrs Vendrinsky has provided no explanation as to why such “compensation” was warranted or why between 16 December 2021 and 6 January 2022, the quantum of this compensation doubled from £10k to £20k. It is, however, clear that that the applicant had no interest in acceding to such requests.

36. Consequently, even if the applicant had contacted the primary respondent prior to making its application, given the factual matrix described, it is far more likely than not that an application to this Tribunal would have resulted. In those circumstances, the applicant’s decision not to contact the primary respondent was, in my view, justified and ought not to prevent an award of costs being made in its favour. I therefore award the applicant costs on the following basis:

Preparing the application: £400
Fee for filing the application: £400

Total: £800

37. I order CROWDSTRIKE HOLDINGS LTD and Mrs Andrea Vendrinsky (jointly) to pay to CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc., and CrowdStrike, Inc., (jointly) the sum of £800 within 21 days of the expiry of the appeal period, or within 21 days of the final determination of this case if any appeal against this decision is unsuccessful. Under section 74(1) of the Act, an appeal can only be made in relation to the decision to uphold the application; there is no right of appeal in relation to costs.

38. Any notice of appeal against this decision must be given within one month of the date of this decision. Appeal is to the High Court in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and to the Court of Session in Scotland.

39. The company adjudicator must be advised if an appeal is lodged, so that implementation of the order is suspended.

Dated 12 May 2022

Christopher Bowen
Company Names Adjudicator