Panelist Considers Domain Valuation in Decision — Another UDRP

UDRP panelists consider asking prices in decisions.

In a highly publicized domain dispute for Hayward.com, a UDRP panelist decided he was an expert at domain valuation and that the price the domain owner wanted for the domain was too high for a city .com., indicating that he must have been targeting the complainant.

Now we have another case where a panelist uses the respondent’s asking price in considering the case. Thankfully, the panelist still denied the transfer.

In Manufacturas Muñoz S.A. Colombia v. Choi Sungyeon, the complainant asked the panel to give it the domain name Muma.com. The respondent had purchased the domain name well ahead of the complainant started using the Muma trademark. It was also only registered in Colombia instead of the respondent’s country of Korea.

Needless to say, these dates made it impossible for the complainant to win the case unless they got lucky with a rogue panelist. Indeed, the panelist in this case found that the domain wasn’t registered in bad faith and denied Manufacturas Muñoz S.A. Colombia’s claim.

But a couple lines in the decision are disconcerting:

While the Panel finds the amount at which Respondent is offering to sell the Disputed Domain Name somewhat suspicious and disconcerting…

And while this Panel finds Respondent’s asking price for the Disputed Domain Name to be somewhat high, there is no evidence to suggest that Respondent did not pay the same amount itself in originally acquiring the Disputed Domain Name.

Am I the only one who has an issue with panelists trying to determine what a reasonable price is for a domain name?