"Lendy Marine Ltd"

A company cannot have the same name as any other active company on the register.  For this purpose the three UK registers (England and Wales, Sotland, Northern Ireland) are combined, so it is not possible to have XYZ Limited in Scotland and Ireland.  The restriction applies to everything but the suffix, e.g. ABC Limited, prevents ABC plc, ABC Ltd, ABC  Limited, ABC cyf (Welsh) ABC ccc (Welsh public) etc etc.  As soon as the company is shown as dissolved on the register the name can be reused.  As was the case with Lendy Limited that was dissolved in 2011 before the current company was incorporated on 9 October 2012 and of course is Lendy Ltd.

About 40 years ago the Registrar of Companies used to scrutinise names and eliminate any before incorporation that he thought might cause confusion but (I think because of the Companies Act 1981) no longer does so, now only refusing to register exact duplicates or those with prohibited or restricted words.  In theory it is possible to register Smith and Sons Limited and Smith & Sons Limited, I don't know if anyone has tried.

There is a separate Business Names Register on which comapnies can note what trading styles they use, but it does not give exclusivity for that name.  If a company believes someone else is using their name to gain a trading advantage or to harm their reputation they can take a "passing off" action against them to stop it and get any profits they may have made.  There are a few famous cases of this from the days when information and communication was difficult and famous names were immitated, but I haven't heardd of many recently.  I suspect it still occurs a lot but is ended very quickly and only takes a solicitors letter from the injured party.

Edit: Lendy Limited (sic) was apponted director yesterday of Maltabondp2p Limited, the other director of that company is Liam Brooke, the company shares the same Registered Office (n.b. the government is in advanced plans to ban corporate directors)