[Gnso-igo-ingo-crp] Another example of a UDRP miscarriage of justice corrected via access to national courts

[George Kirikos]

Hi folks,

During today's call, we discussed how UDRP panels repeatedly make
wrong decisions, forcing the registrant of a valuable domain name to
go to their national courts to receive justice.

Another example came to light today:

http://domainnamewire.com/2016/07/21/mike-mann-overturns-udrp-decision-court/

involving a UDRP decision, one that was "not even close" in the minds
of the panelists (i.e. it was 3-0 in favour of the complainant). Yet,
when it got to court, where much greater due process protections
exist, there was a different result -- namely the registrant retained
the domain name under the settlement. If the UDRP complainants really
had a "winning case", they'd have been entitled to money damages under
the ACPA of up to $100,000, in addition to the transfer of the domain
name.

In the chat I linked to similar court cases related to the UDRP, that
WIPO lists at:

http://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/challenged/

However, WIPO hasn't kept that page updated. I brought to their
attention the AustinPain.com case:

http://ia601008.us.archive.org/18/items/gov.uscourts.cod.147273/gov.uscourts.cod.147273.23.0.pdf

where not only was the UDRP decision at NAF overturned (see
http://www.adrforum.com/domaindecisions/1536356.htm -- another 3-0
"not even close" decision in the minds of the panelists) but the
"winner" of the UDRP ended up paying the domain name registrant
$25,000 (and did not gain access to the domain name via the order; it
looks as though they might have bought it afterwards, though; the
WHOIS history at DomainTools shows it changed hands around Jul 2015, a
year after the court order).

Similarly, another case regarding the SDT.com domain name was settled
with the domain name owner being paid $50,000 for legal fees, damages,
etc., and of course Telepathy retained their valuable domain name,
see:

http://domainnamewire.com/2015/07/22/50000-penalty-for-filing-a-frivolous-udrp/

This court case wasn't posted by WIPO either.

As was discussed, this happens over and over and over again. Allowing
IGOs (or anyone else for that matter) to engage in forum shopping to
compel binding arbitration, where the result would be more favourable
to them (and less favourable to registrants) than what might take
place in a national court, would obviously not be acceptable to most
registrants of valuable domain names.

Sincerely,

George Kirikos
416-588-0269
http://www.leap.com/