Background
4.NGRS is a trade body which promotes the interests of those trading in the removal and storage industry. Such traders may obtain membership of NGRS for a fee and among the benefits of membership is the entitlement to advertise that the trader is a member of NGRS. 5.Central Moves operates a removals and storage business in Twickenham. It is run by Mr Rust. Until December 2008 Mr Rust’s corporate vehicle for his business was Central Moves UK Limited (“CMUK”). CMUK ceased trading in that month and was wound up on 22 December 2008. Its business was acquired and continued by Central Moves from January 2009. CMUK was dissolved on 26 April 2011. 6.CMUK became a member of NGRS in late 2001 or early 2002. Membership was terminated on 15 November 2005. 7.CMUK had an entry on a page of an online trade directory called Loadup (“the Loadup Website”). Loadup is not used by the public, only traders. Its purpose is to allow haulage and removal businesses to offer and find spare capacity, generally available in trucks on otherwise empty return trips. CMUK’s entry read as follows: “Central Moves UK Ltd Removals and storage. National and International. BAR and GUILD MEMBERS http://www.centralmovesuk.com” The reference to BAR is to another trade organisation of which CMUK was a member and which plays no part in this appeal. 8.After CMUK ceased trading its entry on the Loadup Website was not removed. This came to matter because of its online address, www.centralmovesuk.com (“the CMUK web address”), which appeared in the entry. Central Moves purchased that domain name and from January 2009 the address in the Loadup entry served as a link to Central Moves’ website. 9.Jon Martin, a director of NGRS, gave evidence at trial. He said that on 10 December 2012 he was contacted by a customer who drew attention to the CMUK entry on the Loadup Website and asked whether CMUK was a member. Mr Martin looked at the entry and clicked on the CMUK web address, which led him to the Central Moves website. He sent an email to Central Moves, asking it to remove the entry as a matter of urgency. The same day Mr Rust replied, saying that CMUK no longer traded and that he had asked Loadup to remove CMUK’s entry altogether. On 11 December 2012 Loadup confirmed to Mr Rust that the entry had been removed. NGRS was informed of this the next day. 10.NGRS was not satisfied. On 30 July 2013 it started the present proceedings in the Patents County Court. By a consent order dated 28 May 2015 the claim was allocated to the IPEC Small Claims Track. 11.CMUK having been dissolved in 2011 was not a defendant. But NGRS alleged that it had passed itself off as a member of NGRS because of the entry on the Loadup Website and that Mr Rust, as the controlling mind of CMUK, was jointly and personally liable for such passing off. NGRS also alleged that because the www.centralmovesuk.com address in CMUK’s Loadup entry had served as a link to the Central Moves website, Central Moves had also passed itself off as a member of NGRS.