On 27th of May, 2010 Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania made an unfavorable decision for BIGBANK AS Lithuanian branch. BIGBANK respects court decision and will act according to it. However, the bank's mission remains unchanged - fast, flexible and responsible consumer creditting will continue to be easily accessible to customers.
Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania has considered BIGBANK AS appeal regarding Vilnius Regional Administrative Court decision and upheld previous unfavorable decision for BIGBANK. The previous court decision agrees to Competition Council coclusions that BIGBANK's commercial whereas it is used slogan „BIGBANK fastest way to money“ is misleading.
"We respect and will adhere to court decision. According to our conviction, the slogan "BIGBANK fastest way to money" is a metaphor, which does not mention particular loans, conditions, terms, amounts or other qualities. State Patent Bureau, the Institute of the Lithuanian Language and the surveys earlier confirmed that this metaphor is understood figuratively. Besides, we do not think that customers are uneducated and understand the process of issuing credit as being first in a run of 100 metres. This is obvious because there are no analogue complaints in other countries, moreover in the worldwide practice, the usage of adjective superlative form is not forbidden. We think, that not all our arguments were assessed fairly, but we’ve decided not to fight for our truth, but to focus on our promises to the clients, - says the Head of BIGBANK AS Lithuanian branch Rolandas Norvilas.
BIGBANK's slogan "Fastest way to money" is used in Baltic States since 2003 and there have not been any doubts about misleading since that time. Slogan „Fastest way to money“ is a part of BIGBANK's registered EU trademark with a purpose to express BIGBANK's mission to make a rapid and flexible loan and deposit service easily and conveniently available to private persons.
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BIGBANK AS is the biggest bank in the Baltic States, specializing in consumer loans and term deposits for private persons. At the end of 2009 BIGBANK AS Lithuanian branch total assets were 60.9 mln. LTL, profit reached 4.4 mln. LTL. At the end of 2009 BIGBANK had 28 customer service offices in the Baltic States and Finland. BIGBANK offers term deposits as a cross border service in Austria and Germany.
The BIGBANK AS Lithuanian branch started to operate in Lithuania in September, 2007. Currently, BIGBANK has 10 customer service offices in Lithuania: in Vilnius, Kaunas, Klaipėda, Panevėžys, Šiauliai, Marijampolė and Mažeikiai.
