Stelios on the latest developments on brand thieves Palatine private equity and James Moir using www.easyFundraising.org.uk 14March 24

Stelios comments as follows:
“Palatine/Moir must have been seriously rattled by the probing questions asked by two national newspapers about their business model and practices last Sunday (10March24) following the interviews I gave to The Mail and the Observer.

On Monday Palatine/Moir persuaded the arch defender of brand thieves, Alistair Osborne into writing an obscure opinion column in the Times to come to their rescue. In the resulting piece on Tuesday 12 March 24 even Osborne stopped calling Palatine/Moir a “charity” and now Osborne is referring to Palatine/Moir as just a “platform” and “backed by private equity”. That is more honest.

For the avoidance of doubt following my statement to Osborne, here is my complete and honest opinion on Palatine/Moir: I can confirm that having discovered that the Palatine/Moir business model is based on two lies: that they are a charitable endeavour when they are not and that they have something to do with easyJet online when they don’t. I have decided that they cannot be admitted to the easy family of brands even if they begged me for it. They are liars and joining the easy family would damage the rest of the easy brand. If we win the domain in the court case we will operate the same business model of www.easyfundraising.org.uk but only for registered charities. We will be excluding giving cash back for any odd self-serving cause, aka beer money or exotic trips like the ones Palatine/Moir do fund. I know that by cutting out the self-serving cash back element of the business model of the Palatine/Moir the operation is likely to be loss making. But it will be easyGroup’s free contribution to those registered charities. Any damages won against Palatine/Moir by easyGroup will be donated to the British Red Cross.”