The family feud over the use of the ‘Hero’ brand for electric vehicles between the two branches of the Munjal family would be resolved through arbitration as earlier ordered by the Delhi High Court, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday.
A bench led by Justice Indira Banerjee refused to interfere with the Delhi High Court’s February 17 order that refused to restrain Hero MotoCorp from using the Hero brand for their line of EVs as petitioned by cousin Vijay Kumar Munjal and his son Naveen Munjal of Hero Electric under a 2010 family settlement.
The Delhi High Court had set up a three-member arbitral tribunal comprising retired judges Justice Indu Malhotra, Justice Dipak Misra and Justice Indermeet Kaur to adjudicate the matter. The apex court said that the tribunal shall decide the contentions of Hero MotoCorp uninfluenced by the HC judgment.
The contention of Pawan Munjal, the owner of Hero MotoCorp, in the SC was that the family agreement was clear on the use of the Hero brand, and therefore should be exempt from participating in the arbitration proceedings.
The fight over the brand name between the two branches of the Munjal family has been going on for quite sometime now and emanates from a family settlement arrived between the different branches of the family dividing their businesses over a decade back.
Vijay Munjal and his son Naveen are the owners of Hero Electric, which is in the business of manufacturing electric vehicles, while Pawan Munjal leads Hero MotoCorp, which is the country’s largest producer of internal combustion engine (ICE) two-wheelers.
Vijay and Naveen Munjal took the matter to the court contending that cousin Pawan Munjal’s company Hero MotoCorp does not have the right to use the Hero brand name for their EVs.
The contention of Pawan Munjal is that the family agreement gives the right to the Naveen Munjal firm to exclusively use the brand Hero Electric, but there’s no such exclusivity to the brand Hero.
What this means is that Hero MotoCorp can use the brand Hero with some other suffix for its EVs.On March 4, Hero MotoCorp announced a new brand — Vida — for its electric mobility business under which it will unveil its maiden electric two-wheeler on July 1.
