The Delhi High Court has temporarily restrained certain unknown entities from holding themselves to be franchisees of Starbucks without any authorisation. "The case being one of unauthorised imposters holding themselves out, without authorisation, to be franchisees of the plaintiffs, the court is bound to interfere," a single judge bench of Justice C Hari Shankar said while issuing the summons. The coffeehouse chain had alleged that certain unknown entities were holding themselves out to be its franchisee without any authorisation in that regard. It argued that they were misleading the public, and these "fraud franchisees" were operating under the domain names starbucks-franchise.com, www.starbucksfranchise.in. Starbucks further stated that the money earned by the unauthorised representatives was being deposited in HDFC Bank in Mumbai's Lower Parel. The company prayed that the court restrain these entities from defrauding the public, and collecting and misappropriating money. On Starbucks' application seeking interim relief, the high court while issuing notice, passed a bunch of directions which are to remain in force till the next date of hearing which is on July 24. The HC also directed Google to disable an unauthorised email ID – starbucksdealership@gmail.com, and to provide Starbucks with the details of the holder of the email ID. The court directed the domain name registrars to block access to the domain names mentioned in Starbucks lawsuit (starbucks-franchise.com, www.starbucksfranchise.in and starbucksfranchise.co.in). It further ordered HDFC Bank to immediately freeze the bank account number mentioned in the plea and further disclose the identity of the holder to the court. The court also ordered the blocking of a phone number mentioned by Starbucks and directed that the identity of the holder of the number be disclosed as well. "In the event of the plaintiffs coming to learn of any other domain name or website is indulging in similar infringing activities, the plaintiffs may intimate defendants 4 and 6, whereupon the said defendants would, on being satisfied that the said domain names are also indulged in similar infringing activities, proceed to block, forthwith, access to the said domain names. The plaintiffs would, in such an event, be required, however, to file an affidavit before this court within 24 hours bringing this fact to the court’s notice," the HC directed.
