Company filed cybersquatting complaint against FairMarkets.com after failing to buy domain name from its rightful owner.
A financial products company called ILQ Australia Pty Ltd has been found guilty of reverse domain name hijacking over the domain name FairMarkets.com. The company is also associated with BrokerMate Pty Ltd.
It filed the UDRP against a financial expert who acquired the domain name for $3,788 in 2014. That’s prior to when the complainant claims trademark rights. Based on the decision, it appears that the complainant has recent aspirations to use the term “Fair Markets”. It has registered a couple of alternative domain names such as fair.markets and fairmarkets.com.au. At the time of the filing, neither were in use. The company recently launched a site on Fair.markets. In any event, its claimed trademark rights post-date the registration of the domain.
The panel found ILQ Australia failed to prove any of the three elements of the UDRP.
It is a fairly classic “Plan B” reverse domain name hijacking. The complainant tried to buy the domain name. After escalating its offer and failing to strike a deal, it filed a cybersquatting complaint.
Debrett G. Lyons was the panelist for National Arbitration Forum. ILQ was represented by James O’Neill. LinkedIn shows that he’s the Chief Compliance Officer for the company.
Mr. O’Neill seems to be a real idiot.