Files reverse domain name hijacking case on behalf of client — WIPO panelist
A panelist ought to surely know better.
A World Intellectual Property Organization UDRP panelist filed a reverse domain name hijacking case on behalf of a client, fellow panelists have ruled.
Ezgi Baklacı Gülkokar of the law firm Moroğlu Arseven filed a dispute on behalf of Toros Tarım Sanayi ve Ticaret Anonim Şirketi against the domain name toros.com.
The domain itself ought to set off alarm bells: even non-Spanish speakers probably recognize this is the Spanish word for bulls.
But the Complainant’s conduct in this case is more egregious than filing a dispute against a generic domain name.
Once the case was filed and the domain owner’s identity was revealed, the Complainant updated its case to name the domain registrant but didn’t do additional research with the fresh information.
Had the Complainant undertaken what the panel considers “a simple search of the disputed domain name on the Wayback Machine”, it would have discovered that the current owners have a right or legitimate interest in the domain name. For years, it was a site regarding bullfighting.
Worse, the Complaint includes an apparently false allegation that the domain owner tried to sell the domain to the Complainant. It alleged that the Respondent approached the Complainant through the domain broker Saw.com, offering to sell the disputed domain name to the Complainant for $37,000.
That’s not what happened, as stated by a signed declaration by Saw.com founder Jeffrey Gabriel.
Gabriel stated that it was the Complainant that contacted Saw.com regarding acquiring the domain. Gabriel provided an appraisal of the domain from Saw.com’s appraisal tool that was for $37,000, but stated:
It is difficult to estimate what price could be requested for the domain as the owner (we don’t own the domain) is the primary variable, but I’ve generated an appraisal for you to give you an idea of what it could sell for.
Shockingly, the Complainant didn’t address this allegation following receiving the domain owner’s response to the dispute.
Ezgi Baklacı Gülkokar is a fairly fresh WIPO panelist, having first decided a case in 2022. But she’s active; UDRP.tools indicates that she has decided 31 cases.
John Berryhill represented the domain name owner in the three-panelist case. Nathalie Dreyfus was one of the panelists, so it’s a good thing it was a three-member panel. (She did agree with the majority in this case.)
This is the second time I’m aware of a UDRP panelist filing a case that resulted in a bad faith ruling. The other was in 2016. The panelist in that case had decided 65 UDRP cases, but was removed from WIPO’s panelist roster shortly following that decision.
