Quick Company Name Question

[DayTrader]

There is an existing live company I found on BizFile named:

EXAMPLE ENERGY RESOURCES PTE. LTD.

I would like to call my company:

EXAMPLE ENERGY PTE. LTD.

So I have dropped a word, but the names are still similar, although not identical. Will there be an automatic rejection or other issue here?

The documents I have read on the ACRA website do not cover this specific example.

[Max Headroom]

Obviously, there's plenty of scope for confusion. I would be extremely surprised if it were approved.

[DayTrader]

Yes, I would not blame them for rejecting really. Especially since the industry is very likely to be the same . . . back to the drawing board!

I understand that a company name can be reused if the company has been dissolved or struck-off after two or six years, respectively.

If a sole proprieter business has a BizFile status of "Terminated", how long would it be before the business name could be reused (again, I could not find any info on this)? For example, the terminated business is named:

EXAMPLE ENERGY

and I wish to form

EXAMPLE ENERGY PTE. LTD.

[Strong Eagle]

It is unlikely that it would be approved as the standard is "likely to cause confusion".

You could contact the other company, however, and if they were to give you a waiver, you could then register with that name.

[DayTrader]

You could contact the other company, however, and if they were to give you a waiver, you could then register with that name.

Ok, thanks, I did not consider that option.

I'll need a couple of backup names as well though, so will still need to find out if I can use the name of a sole proprieter's business that has terminated, as that will be my first backup.

I'll try to contact ACRA directly and see if they can give me an answer.

[Strong Eagle]

If the company is "terminated" there should be no issues in using the name.

[Mi Amigo]

The other aspect you might want to consider is whether your (potential or actual) customers might also get the wrong perception of your company if they search for the name but find information about the other entity instead. If the previous company was terminated then perhaps there was some dodgy behaviour at some point - do you really want to risk being (albeit incorrectly) associated with that?

[DayTrader]

Some good points there which I shall take on board. Thanks.