The UDRP case regarding NEWFORESTS.COM
 

New Forests Asset Management Pty Limited, Australia found Guilty Of Reverse Domain Name Highjacking on 16 year old domain name NewForests.com.
  Law Firm Clayton Utz loses UDRP case in its attempt to unfairly grab 16 year old NewForests.com domain name for its clients New Forests Asset Management.

The 3-party WIPO panel unanimously found New Forests Asset Management represented by Clayton Utz to be Reverse Domain Name Hijackers.
 


The domain holder registered the domain name NewForests.com back in 1999. The Complainant filed to register trademarks in 2015 and initiated the UDRP case after its failed Plan "B" attempts to buy the domain name. (The Complaint is used as a Plan “B” option to acquire a domain after commercial negotiations have failed.)


The panelists found that the NewForests.com domain name had neither been registered in bad faith nor was the NewForests.com domain name being used in bad faith.
 

The WIPO panelists stated:

"The Panel finds that the Complaint was brought in bad faith and constitutes an abuse of the administrative proceeding."

The ruling on the case (New Forests Asset Management Pty Limited v. Kerry Schorsch, Global Advertizing, LLC) can be found at WIPO Case No. D2015-1415
 

In deciding that the Complainant was guilty of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking, the panelists' conclusion sums up by saying:

"In the case at hand, the Panel considers that the Complainant is represented by a Counsel who knew or should have known, at the time of the filing of the Complaint, that it could not prove at least one of the essential elements required by the Policy, namely the Respondent’s bad faith registration, as the Respondent’s registration of the disputed domain name predates the creation and first use of the Complainant’s trademark."

and

"Furthermore, there is no indication, also in the pre-complaint correspondence exchanged between the Parties, that the Respondent might have expressly intended to target the Complainant’s trademark, and it appears that the Complaint was filed in an attempt to obtain the transfer of the disputed domain name from the Panel after the Complainant’s negotiations with the Respondent were unsuccessful."

and

"... “Initiating domain name dispute resolution proceedings necessarily involves putting the parties to a considerable expenditure of time and in many cases cost and the Policy must not be used unless the complainant has a reasonable and credible belief it is entitled to succeed. In particular, proceedings must not be commenced in a brash and totally unjustifiable attempt to pressure a domain name owner into releasing a legitimately held domain name that considerably pre-dates any trademark rights held by the complainant, ...."



  
 
 

There are news stories about the NewForests.com domain name UDRP case on  TheDomains.com "Owner of NewForests.com.au Found Guilty Of Reverse Domain Hijacking on 16 Yr Old .Com" and DomainNameWire.com "New Forests Asset Management is a Reverse Domain Name Hijacker" and also DomainGang.com "NewForests.com : Geo domain used in marketing salvaged from UDRP"

There are numerous sources for "Reverse Domain Name Hijacking".  Amongst these are RDNH.com and HallOfShame.com (which includes a current list of those found guilty of trying to Reverse Hijack a Domain Name in which they had no legal rights. In other words they tried to bully the rightful owners into relinquishing their property and forcing these innocent parties to spend thousands to defend what they already own).

See also Does the UDRP do more harm than good? and The UDRP: A Problem at the Core of the Internet

 

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