They are all valid and subsisting. The Complainant is a long established business in the area of insurance, assurance and financial services. It was founded in 1866 as the British Workmen s Mutual Assurance Company. Since then it has grown to become a major supplier in the United Kingdom market of life insurance, pensions and savings products and services. The principal activities of the Complainant and its subsidiary undertakings are the transaction of life assurance and certain classes of general insurance business.
All business is transacted in the United Kingdom.
Its products are distributed by a direct sales force of about one thousand eight hundred professionally qualified financial advisers. The Complainant is a member of the Association of British Insurers and the Insurance Ombudsman Bureau. In the latest annual report of the Complainant for the financial year ended December 1999, profit after tax of 117.7million is shown on the non-technical account. The Complainant uses the trade marks throughout the United Kingdom in relation to its business. It is advertised widely and promoted and is well known in the United Kingdom in the area of insurance, assurance and financial services.