The long David-vs.-Goliath legal battle between little Citizens National Bank of Evans City and behemoth Citizens Bank of Pennsylvania is over.
Citizens National Bank, with its 15 branches in Allegheny, Armstrong and Butler counties, said on Friday it reached a confidential agreement to release the use of its name to Citizens Bank of Pennsylvania, which has 120 branches in the region. Spokesmen for both banks refused to give details of the agreement, such as whether it included a monetary payment.
Citizens National Bank will continue to use its name until it reveals a new name this summer as part of its growth plan, Patty Perhacs, senior vice president of marketing for Citizens National Bank, said yesterday.
As a result of the agreement, Citizens Bank of Pennsylvania said it is suspending immediately its work to convert 16 branches it operates in northern Allegheny County and Butler County to the name Charter One. Charter One is the name of its Ohio-based affiliate bank.
Citizens Bank had placed permanent signs with its new name on seven branches in Butler County, but had only placed temporary signs, such as banners, at nine northern Allegheny County branches, said spokesman Mike Jones. It will begin the process to reinstall the Citizens Bank name where it had been removed, Jones said.
The confidential agreement ends the trademark infringement case that Citizens National Bank filed against Citizens Financial Group, the parent of Citizens Bank of Pennsylvania, in U.S. District Court in Pittsburgh four years ago.
Citizens National Bank said its customers were confused by the similar names, and it owned the rights to the name. Citizens Bank started using the name locally when it bought Mellon Financial Corp.'s retail banking operations in 2001.
Citizens National Bank won its case on an appeal last year to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia. In December, Chief U.S. District Judge Donetta Ambrose in Pittsburgh ordered Citizens Bank to stop advertising or operating under that name. Citizens Bank of Pennsylvania then agreed to place the Charter One name on 16 of its branches whose territories overlap Citizens National Bank branches.
Perhacs said she did not know if Citizens National Bank had filed any documents with U.S. District Court in Pittsburgh notifying the court it would withdraw its lawsuit.
Spokespeople for Citizens National Bank and Citizens Bank of Pennsylvania said yesterday they were not permitted to divulge details of the confidential agreement between the two banking companies. Neither would say whether Citizens Bank made Citizens National Bank a financial offer to settle the lawsuit.
Jones would not say whether the settlement with Citizens National Bank was the result of customer complaints to Citizens Bank over the confusion in bank names. He said the company's advertising alerted customers to the change to Charter One, and there were few complaints received on a company hot line.
A spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Department of Banking was not aware Friday of Citizens National Bank filing any application for permission to change its name.
