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You'd think Citigroup would have bigger things to worry about these days than paying $1,000-an-hour lawyers to face off against a rinky-dink pawn shop in Brooklyn. Think again. Last week, the banking giant filed suit against All Citi Pawn on Neptune Avenue in Brooklyn for ripping off the bank's name and logo. In court papers, Skadden Arps' Ken Plevan, argued that the pawn shop is "tarnishing the extraordinary reputation of Citi," which he (rather generously) described as "one of the largest and most renowned banking and financial services institutions in the world." The bank is now suing All Citi for trademark infringement, dilution, false designation of origin, and unfair competition. But can a business that is profitable (which we're guessing the pawn shop is) really "dilute the value" of Citigroup when it's the bank—and not the pawn shop—that has reported record losses and had to rely on a government bailout to stay afloat?

Unfortunately, the run-down pawn shop doesn't seem to have any plans to test out the novel legal strategy. All Citi already appears to be backing down, having removed the objectionable "red arc-like symbol" above its logo from AllCitiPawn.com over the weekend. It's unclear if that's going to be enough to satisfy the bank. And given Citigroup's lawsuit asks for all of the pawn shop's profits since first adopting the Citi name—in addition to an unspecified amount in damages and control of All Citi's domain name—maybe pursuing cases like this is just what Citi needs to be doing right now to stanch the red ink? The full suit is below.