News story

Update on Company Names Tribunal services

We have plans in place to maintain services for customers while ensuring the ongoing protection of staff.

Company names Tribunal

Following government advice on measures to tackle the spread of the coronavirus, we are able to confirm that our services are mainly unaffected at present.

Our people are our top priority. The majority of our staff are equipped to work from home and are doing so to avoid unnecessary travel and social contact. Our sites remain open for essential work that can only be undertaken on site.

Online services

We are still able to process fees, paper forms, faxes and paper correspondence. But, we ask customers to use our online services whenever possible. This will give us the best chance of continuing to deliver our services.

For services that are not available online, we have created an email address called forms@ipo.gov.uk which can be used instead of faxing, or posting documents to us. For now, our fax machine is still operating. We will review this and will let you know if we are going to shut the fax service down. Please do not send duplicate copies to the email and fax. This will slow down the processing of yours and others’ forms.

Hearings service

Aldgate Tower where we undertake Tribunal hearings is currently not operational.

  • we will continue to operate hearings via telephone, Skype or other virtual methods
  • no further physical hearings will be booked or take place until 1 June 2020 (this date will be kept under review)
  • parties will be contacted over the next few days if their current hearing arrangements need to change

We will continue to update this page with any changes to services, as well as providing more details as they develop.

Published 7 May 2020