Walmart-backed digital payments firm PhonePe and New-Delhi-based fintech startup BharatPe said on May 26th that they had settled all long-standing legal despite the use of a trademark with the suffix ‘Pe’.
Both the leading fintech companies were involved in long legal battles across multiple courts, over the course of the past five years.
“The settlement will put an end to all open judicial proceedings,” according to a joint statement released on Sunday.
Both the companies have reached an agreement and withdrawn all oppositions against each other.
“This is a positive development for the industry. I appreciate the maturity and professionalism shown by the management of both sides, working closely to resolve all outstanding legal issues and moving ahead to focus their energy and resources in building robust digital payment ecosystems,’’ said Rajnish Kumar, chairman of BharatPe.
“I am glad that we have reached an amicable resolution in this matter. This outcome will benefit both companies to move forward and focus our collective energy on growing the Indian fintech industry as a whole,” said Sameer Nigam, founder and CEO of PhonePe.
BharatPe VS PhonePe
The conflict began in 2018 when PhonePe issued a legal notice to BharatPe, asking the latter to stop using ‘Pe’ in Devanagari script in its brand name. In 2019, PhonePe took further legal action by filing a plea in the Delhi High Court, seeking an injunction against BharatPe’s use of the ‘Pe’ suffix.
In 2021, PhonePe also moved the Bombay High Court against BharatPe’s holding company Resilient Innovations for using the suffix for its Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) offering PostPe. However, this copyright infringement plea by PhonePe against BharatPe was dismissed by the court. At the time of the dispute between the two companies, cofounder Ashneer Grover was at the helm of affairs at BharatPe.
BharatPe said that the “BharatPe” mark was coined by them and also the services that they provide are different from “PhonePe”.
