Insurance company Allianz tries reverse domain name hijacking a domain name

World Intellectual Property Organization panelists have harsh words for insurance giant.

Insurance giant Allianz has been found guilty of reverse domain name hijacking in its attempt to get the domain name AGCS.com.

The company formed a business called Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty in 2006 and, at some point, started referring to this group at AGCS. It subsequently used agcs.allianz.com for the business and registered myagcs.com in 2013.

The domain owner acquired the domain name in 2010 due to its value as a four letter domain.

The panel determined that Allianz’s evidence did not show any use of the acronym prior to 2017. Apparently, much of its evidence supported how Allianz (not AGCS) is a well-known brand.

In finding RDNH, the majority of the panel wrote:

…Complainant made numerous allegations concerning its rights in AGCS, and how well-known AGCS has become as referring to Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty SE, that Complainant completely failed to support with any evidence…

…Complainant made no attempt to prove any rights in AGCS prior to May 2010 and only provided evidence of its use of AGCS in late 2017

…Simply put, the facts in this proceeding demonstrate that Complainant clearly ought to have known it could not succeed under any fair interpretation of the facts reasonably available prior to the filing of the Complaint and that basing its Complaint on the barest of allegations without any supporting evidence – such as claiming bad faith registration of the disputed domain name by Respondent with no proof of Complainant’s rights in the AGCS mark prior to May 2010 (and only showing use of AGCS by Complainant seven years after Respondent registered the disputed domain name) – was doomed to fail…