I experienced this in Open Beta. I created a company, but then didn’t know how to dissolve the company before changing my character name. I looked all over for a ‘dissolve or disband button’ no luck. However, when I left/quit the company and deleted my character to remake it on another, the name was unavailable.
On the company roster, it still showed 0/0 members but the name was unclaimable the entire open Beta as the company was still ‘active’. I had hoped I missed something but so far no clues.
The name has become available after testing it with a member. There is some sort of delay however. I don’t know what were the conditions whether time or the action of logging out confirmed the deletion. When he logged back on, he was able to change his 2nd dummy company back to the original.
My recommendation is to first change the name, then leave the company. Give it some time or log out will make the name available.
It was about 5minutes before he reloged and switched the name. Other names that he used were either taken by others or something. so if the name isn’t available. It has probably been sniped.