BookYourGame (BYG), a marketplace to discover and book fitness centres, has been granted an ex-parte interim injunction restraining the Mukesh Bansal cofounded Cure.fit from launching its new product ‘Gym.Fit’.

The Bangalore City Civil Court passed an interim order on August 7, 2019, against Cure.Fit, ordering it to not launch, promote, market or sell any product or service using the ‘Gym.Fit, CultX, and Sports.fit’ names, in any manner.

Started in 2016, BYG offers subscribers access to various gyms/fitness centres affiliated with the app without membership in each gym/fitness centre. The app also provides software management solutions for gyms and fitness centres.

Cure.Fit was set to launch a national gym subscription called Gym.Fit, which aggregates gyms across the city. BYG alleged in its petition that the health and fitness platform had offered to acquire it for about Rs 5 crore in June, but subsequently retracted after exchange of crucial data and intellectual property.

BYG submitted that the plan was for Cure.Fit to acquire the business of BYG and thereafter relaunch the same services offered by BYG as its own.

It was also submitted by BYG that it was asked to cease providing management services to its clients and terminate some of its employees on Cure.Fit’s insistence.

While this was the case, BYG contended that Cure.Fit abruptly intimated its unwillingness to carry forward the deal by an e-mail sent in July. Following BYG's response, Cure.Fit sent another allied e-mail in August. Through this correspondence, BYG argued that Cure.Fit also admitted to having possession of confidential information held by BYG. Further, it also contended that only a paltry compensation amount was offered for their termination of the deal.

Owing to the deal negotiations with Cure.Fit, BYG claimed to have lost a potential acquisition deal with Medifit Consultants Private Limited, Bangalore.

In this backdrop, BYG had approached the Court, contending that,

"The line of business created by the Plaintiff after having painstakingly built the same over four years is simply recreated by the Defendants using the knowledge, know-how, proprietary information and intellectual property of the plaintiff...

... The Defendants did not have any product similar to that of the Plaintiff and used the…information, etc. and the skills, time, effort of the Plaintiff to hectically reproduce and copy the Plaintiff’s product which is being hastily launched. The entire scheme of the Defendants to defraud the Plaintiff is apparent….

… the Plaintiff’s valuable body of work has fallen into the hands of the Defendants… The Defendants are taking hasty steps to launch their own product tentatively named ‘Gym.fit’ on the basis of the Plaintiff’s body of work. The Defendants are also in possession of precise plans and methods to execute the business, and also a host of entities to approach to further their business. The Defendants have received huge sums of investment exceeding thousands of crores. The Defendants will indulge in anti-competitive unfair trade practices through abuse of dominance by engaging in predatory pricing etc. to immediately acquire the customers, clients, suppliers etc. of the Plaintiff and seek to monetise the very product of the Plaintiff. As such, it is imperative that the Defendants be restrained from launching a product similar to the Plaintiff’s product."

While issuing the interim injunction order, the City Civil and Sessions Judge also issued notice to the Defendants and posted the matter for next hearing on September 11, 2019.

[Read Interim Order]