As the world is constantly evolving and changing, we have to evolve and change with it as well. With time, your company’s existing name may not appeal to the customer base anymore and you may have to change it. This can be a scary process for any business owner to undertake. However, corporate PRO services in UAE are here to help you through the process of changing your company’s legal name.
The Department of Economic Development in Dubai is the governing body that is responsible for handling the process of changing a company’s legal name. This is where we come in. We provide corporate PRO services to change the legal name of your company. Our expert public relations officers will deal with the authorities in the Department of Economic Development for you.
Why Would You Need to Change Your Company’s Legal Name?
There are various reasons why you would need to change your company’s legal name. A common circumstance is that a lot of entrepreneurs start their company with their own name. However, when a small business starts to grow into a big corporation, the name should be changed to represent the corporation as a whole and not just the person that founded the company.
1. Changing Mentality
There are many circumstances where companies had to change their name due to the changing times and mindsets of people. One real-life example is the Indian cosmetics brand Fair & Lovely from the multinational company Unilever.
Unilever launched Fair & Lovely in India because of the country’s population’s desire to have lighter skin. However, as times changed and tolerance to colorism and racism changed, the brand could no longer market its products with its existing name. As a result, they changed their name to Glow & Lovely and successfully continued their operations in the South-East Asian region.
2. Trademark Issues
Even though trademarks are established to ensure copyright protection. Sometimes similar-sounding names get away with it because of the different ways words are spelled. When two or more companies in the same industry have similar-sounding names, all of them run the risk of losing customers. That is when one or more of those companies may choose to change their name.
Another scenario is that the name may be unique in the home country but similar to brands aboard. This will hinder the chance for expansions and as a result, they need to change their trade name.
3. Expanding Activities and Rebranding
As a company grows and expands its activities into other sectors, a lot needs to be changed. For example, the existing name of the company may only cater to its current customer base. However, when expanding into other sectors a brand needs to have a universal name that can represent all of its products.
A real-life example of this would be Apple. Apple’s previous name was Apple Computers when it only sold the Mac computers. However, when Apple decided to release the iPhone, they changed their name from Apple Computers to the Apple we know today.
How to Change Your Company’s Name in UAE?
As we have mentioned before, you can easily change your company’s name with the help of our corporate PRO services Dubai. There are some steps that need to be taken in order to change the existing name of your company.
The first step is to get the initial approval for initiating the name change from the Department of Economic Development. To get the initial approval from them, you need to fill up an application. In the application, you will need to provide:
- The existing company name.
- The proposed company name.
- The current location of the business and the place where it was registered.
- The registered company office address.
- Details about the company’s legal structure.
- Details about the business activities of the company.
- Details about the company’s directors and corporate secretary.
- A copy of the company’s Memorandum and Articles of Association.
- The statement of guarantee or compliance.
When changing your company’s name, you need to comply with the naming policies of all private companies in the UAE. If you do not follow these policies, the Department of Economic Development will reject your initial approval. Here are the restrictions and policies you need to keep in mind when naming your company in the UAE:
- Your company structure abbreviation (Limited Liability Company, LLC) can be added at the end of your company name.
- The name should not imply any association with any government bodies or local authorities in the UAE.
- The name should not have any sensitive expressions.
- The name should not have any words which may incite offense.
- The name cannot be the same as other existing companies in the UAE.
- The name cannot use any signs, symbols, punctuation, etc.
If you comply with all these policies, the Department of Economic Development in Dubai will give you the initial approval. After that, you can go ahead and register a new trade name.
After you have changed the trade name of your company, you need to request to change the name in your business trade license as well. You need to submit an amendment request to the relevant governing body that provided the business trade license to you and get a new trade license with the changed trade name.
You will also need to amend other official documents where your company’s name was included. These documents will include the Initial Approval Certificate, shareholders’ resolution, statement of undertaking the liabilities owed by the previous name, original incorporation certificate, etc. You will need to advertise the change of the name of your company in the local newspapers in both English and Arabic languages.
How can Spider Business Center help you?
Our corporate PRO services in UAE will help you in all aspects of your business. If you want to change the name of your company then our PRO services will help you in that regard as well. Our team of experts has years of experience providing various corporate services to businesses all over the UAE.
