Stelios heads to court in battle over use of Easy brand

EasyJet founder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou is due to appear in court later this month in a bid to stop what he alleges is "unauthorised" use of the Easy brand.

The entrepreneur claims that Yannick Pons, who owns online classified advertisement website Vivastreet, has been using the Easy prefix without permission on a number of websites across Europe, including easyRoommate.

The lawsuit has been taken out against Mr Pons personally as well as his Jersey-based company W3 for alleged unauthorised use of the Easy name in markets served by Sir Stelios's Easy family of brands.

Mr Pons is expected to appear at the High Court in London early next week, while Sir Stelios is set to be in the witness box around November 21 or 22.

The case comes after two years of legal wrangling between Sir Stelios and Mr Pons.

Sir Stelios owns easyGroup - a private investment company registered in the UK and the legal owner of the Easy family of brands, with more than 1,000 registered trademarks, including easyHotel and easyBus.

Sir Stelios and his family still hold around a third of shares in low-cost airline easyJet, which he founded in 1995.

He was knighted in 2006 for services to entrepreneurship.