Panel finds water utility compliance company Klir guilty of reverse domain name hijacking.
A three-person panel found that Klir Platform Europe Limited filed its case against klir.com in bad faith. The Complainant helps water and sewer utilities with compliance and uses the domain name klir.io.
Klir tried the buy the domain name many times over the past few years but would not meet the domain owner’s asking price. It then filed the UDRP in a classic “Plan B” attempt at reverse domain name hijacking.
John Berryhill, attorney for the Respondent, found something odd when defending the case. The Complainant was formed in 2014 and his client registered the domain in 2016. But…
The Complainant was not founded in 2014 as “Klir Platform Europe Limited”. The Irish Companies Registration Office record for the Complainant shows that the company founded in 2014 was named “Elm Consulting & Solutions Limited” and changed its name to “Klir Platform Europe Limited” by resolution dated August 14, 2018 and recorded on September 12, 2018. That date is consistent with the formation of “Klir Trading Company Limited” on January 2, 2018 and with the registration of Complainant’s klir.io domain name on September 20, 2017.
So there was no way that the domain owner registered the domain in bad faith to target the Complainant.
The registrant is a domain investor with a collection of four-letter domains.
Another interesting note is that the Complainant stated, “Because the Complainant does not have the klir.com domain name, marketing emails are often blocked by anti-spam software or ignored.”
CIIDRC has ruled on 29 UDRP cases to date. It also handles disputes for .CA domains under the CDRP.
Bill Mayo of Stratford Group represented the Complainant found guilty of reverse domain name hijacking.
Should have been priced *at the very least* in the low to mid six figures US$ to begin with regardless of them, it’s a stellar pronounceable four letter dictionary word (Clear, Bulgarian). It was priced way too cheap and these bullies lost a great opportunity to own their brand. Now they never will.