Facebook’s latest efforts to rebrand its Libra stablecoin project, recently renamed Diem, appear to have hit the rocks – again – with a British fintech firm of the same name preparing legal action.
The Libra Association, the project’s governing body, recently stated that it was renaming itself the Diem Association, Latin for “day,” in a bid to make a fresh start.
But per a report from Sifted, Facebook and friends may be forced into an embarrassing legal battle with the London based Diem platform, which lets small-scale buyers and sellers trade their belongings on the internet.
The media outlet quotes Geri Cupi, the founder and CEO of Diem, as stating,
“We thought: Do we concede and just say ‘we’re a small company,’ or do we fight for what’s right? It wouldn’t have taken that much effort for Facebook to find out if there’s another Diem in financial services. They obviously took the view that ‘we can just crush them, we’re Facebook.’”
On Twitter, one observer pointed out that naming crypto projects does not seem to be Facebook’s strong suit – pointing out that what it changed its Calibra wallet brand to Novi, it apparently neglected to look into the fact that an Irish IT services company also goes by the same name. The poster added,