The Complainant's contentions can be summarized as follows:
- The Complainant is a limited liability company, incorporated under the laws of the Republic of Latvia with its registration number 40003707115. The Complainant’s name is “SORELEX” and this name has not changed since its incorporation on 26.10.2004.
- The Complainant's activity is the manufacture of cordage, rope, twine and netting, machinery and equipment, fabricated metal products (except machinery and equipment), motor vehicles, trailers and semi-trailers, which it does under the name SORELEX .
- The Complainant used to operate a website at the Internet address “www.sorelex.com”, corresponding to the disputed domain name, from 5 December 2005 until 20 April 2011, on which it used to offer its services and goods.
- SORELEX is a fanciful word created by Mr. Yves Requillart in 1983 as the acronym for “Société de Relations Extérieures”.SORELEX has been used since 1983 in France as a company name and as an unregistered trademark.
- In 2004 Mr. Yves Requillart decided to participate as co-founder and shareholder of the Complainant in the Republic of Latvia. At that time, Mr. Yves Requillart granted an unwritten licence to the Complainant to use the term SORELEX as the name of the company yet to be incorporated, and after the Complainant's incorporation, on 26 October 2004, as trade name and registered trademark.
- The Respondent has never been authorized to register the domain name <sorelex.com> or to use the term SORELEX in any other way before or after the registration of the Complainant with the Commercial Register of the Republic of Latvia.
- Mr. Yves Requillart enjoys rights over the term SORELEX arising from the use of the SORELEX company name and trade mark since 1983, while the Complainant enjoys rights arising from its use of the SORELEX trade mark since 2005.
- The total balance of the Complainant in the beginning of 2005 was approx. EUR 46 760.00 and in the end of 2005 was approx. EUR 391 650.00; the net turnover in the beginning of 2010 was approx. EUR 930 450.00 and in the end of 2010 was approx. 648 128.00.
- The company name and trade name SORELEX are well known in the Republic of Latvia for their long use and their exclusive association with the Complainant.
- There is no evidence to suggest that there is a company or business other than the Complainant that uses the name SORELEX in the same area of industry as the Complainant.
- The Complainant is the owner of the national Latvian trade mark, SORELEX (figurative), filed on 3 April 2009 and granted on 20 July 2009, under registration number M 60 866. The Respondent is a citizen of the Republic of Latvia and the Complainant’s rights are valid in the country of the Respondent’s citizenship.
- The Respondent is one of the Complainant’s founders and minority shareholder (the Respondent owns 10% of the Complainant’s shares) and the Respondent used to act as the Complainant’s Chairman of the Board of Directors from 26 October 2004 to 20 October 2011.
- At the time of the registration of the disputed domain name, i.e. on 19 July 2004, the Respondent was well aware of Mr. Yves Requillart’s earlier intellectual property rights towards SORELEX and the Respondent as one of the Complainant’s founders knew that the planned name of the Complainant was SORELEX. Nonetheless, the Respondent registered the disputed domain name in his own name rather than in the Complainant’s name. The other shareholders and members of the Complainant’s Board of Directors did not pay attention to the fact that the disputed domain name had been registered in the Respondent’s name because the domain name <sorelex.com> served as the Complainant’s "official" website.
- In 2011 the Respondent was removed from the position of Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Complainant due to the fact that the Respondent secretly and illegally took most of the Complainant’s assets, and led the Complainant into an insolvency situation (at the moment the Complaint has successfully resumed its economic activity).
- The Combating of Economical Offences Bureau of the Central Criminal Police Department of the State Police of Latvia has initiated criminal proceedings No.118160002412 against the Respondent, pursuant to Section 18 “Criminal Offences against Property” of the Latvian Criminal Law. The criminal proceedings are currently at an investigation stage.
- After the revocation of the Respondent’s appointment as Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Complainant, the Respondent removed the Complainant’s official website, and started using the offending domain name primarily for the purpose of disrupting the business of the Complainant, because the Respondent’s obvious intention was to divert (redirect) potential customers of the Complainant to the Respondent’s related company’s website “www.belts.lv”. This related company is named sabiedriba ar ierobezotu atbildibu "BELTS TROSES" (hereinafter “Belts Troses”).
- Belts Troses is a limited liability company, incorporated under the laws of the Republic of Latvia under registration number 40002036873. The Respondent is the sole founder and was a shareholder of Belts Troses from 28 September 1995 to 9 April 2010. The Respondent acted also as Belts Troses’ Chairman of the Board of Directors from 3 December 2003 to 16 April 2010.
- Belts Troses is one of the Complainant's competitors, as it sells steel wire ropes, chain products, webbing products and other rigging accessories (see the website at www.belts.lv).
- The existence of a connection between the Respondent and Belts Troses is evidenced also by both the “WHOIS” information of the disputed domain name, and the contents of the www.belts.lv website. According to the “WHOIS” information of <sorelex.com>, the Respondent’s e-mail is administrator@belts.lv, which contains Belts Troses’ domain <belts.lv> and according to the WHOIS of Belts Troses’ website, the holder and technical contact e-mail is aldis@sorelex.com, which contains the Respondent’s first name and the domain “sorelex.com”.
- Within the meaning of the paragraph 4 of the Policy, the Domain name is identical to SORELEX, unregistered trademark of the Founder, the company name, trade name and registered Trade mark of the Complainant.
- In determining the similarity of SORELEX and the Domain name, letters of SORELEX and the Domain name must be compared. The differences between the SORELEX and the Domain name are only “www” and “.com”. It is obvious that extension “.com” is not significant when identifying the Domain Name, since it is a generic “.com” domain suffix. As for letters “www”, they are the abbreviation of the words “world wide web” in the “Internet World” and therefore, the letters “www” are not distinct for identifying the Domain name either (See Marie Claire Album v. Geoffrey Blakely, WIPO Case No. D2002-1015).
- The Domain name consists entirely of SORELEX and the Domain name does not have any additional words that would detract from or minimize the effect and dominance of the SORELEX in the domain name.
- The Respondent does not have any rights or legitimate interest in the domain name(s)
- Under paragraph 4(a)(ii) of the Policy, the Complainant has the burden of establishing that the Respondent has no rights or legitimate interests in respect of the domain name.
- The Respondent has no rights or legitimate interests in the Domain name because the Respondent is not authorized in any way to use SORELEX and because the facts show an obvious intention of the Respondent to fraudulently obtain the Domain name and to benefit from the reputation of SORELEX name after the Respondent was removed from the position of the chairman of the board of directors of the Complainant.
- Moreover, there is no evidence to suggest that there is a company or business other than the Complainant that uses the name in the same area of industry as the Complainant.
- The Respondent uses the Domain name to attract potential customers to the Competitor’s website and to promote the products of the Competitor.
- According to established practice, the Respondent must use the site to sell only the trademarked goods; otherwise, it could be using the trademark to bait Internet users and then switch them to other goods - Nikon, Inc. v. Technilab, WIPO Case No. D2000-1774(February 26, 2001) (use of Nikon-related domain names to sell Nikon and competitive cameras was not a legitimate use); Kanao v. J.W. Roberts Co., Case No. 0109 (CPR July 25, 2001) (bait and switch is not legitimate).
- In other words, the domain name registrant would be using SORELEX for a legitimate purpose if it promoted solely the goods of SORELEX owner, but if it uses SORELEX in a domain name as a guise to promote other goods and services which is not in the interests of SORELEX owner, that use of SORELEX is wholly illegitimate.
- The domain name has been registered and is being used in bad faith.
- The Respondent, like everyone else in this industry, and also as former chairman of the board of directors of the Complainant knows the Marks of the Complainant. That being so, he could not have chosen or subsequently used the Marks in his Domain name for any reason other than to trade on that name and to confuse Internet users and by that means attract them to a website with a name which is the same as that of the Marks. That is, in itself, evidence of bad faith, both generally and specifically within the meaning of paragraph 4(b)(iii) and (iv) of the Policy.
- The Complainant indicates to the opinion taken in J. García Carrión, SA v. José Catalán Frías, WIPO Case No. D2000-0239, where the panel found that lack of respondent’s rights or legitimate interests in the domain name is undoubtedly indicative of registration in bad faith. In the Complainant’s opinion, this is the case in the present proceeding.
- The Respondent and the Competitor are using the domain name to run a business in open competition with the Complainant. It is clear that the Respondent and the Competitor want customers to come directly to them and it is equally clear that the Respondent and the Competitor are trying by means of the Domain name to divert or siphon off as many off them as it can and to get the business for themselves. That is clearly disrupting the business of a Complainant, for it is interrupting the progress of that business. The Respondent and the Competitor has attracted potential customers by using the Domain name without consent and creating the impression in the mind of at least some potential customers that is has connection with the Complainant.
- The Respondent was very well aware of the Complainants' earlier intellectual property rights when he transferred the Domain name. Nevertheless, the Respondent registered the domain name and started to divert the Internet users from the "official" website (the same as “www.sorelex.eu”). The Complainant believes that the sole possible purpose for which the Respondent has registered and is using the Domain name is to derive commercial gain from the diversion of Internet users from the Complainants' website.
- This view, that the conduct just described amounts to bad faith, is consistent with the view taken by other UDRP panels on analogous facts and particularly in cases where the names of well-known motorcar manufacturers have been used to sell spare parts made by other manufacturers. Thus, in Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc. v. Pick Pro Parts Inc, WIPO Case No. D2005-0562, the owner of the domain name <lexus--parts.com>, an unauthorized dealer in Lexus parts, was directing the domain name to its website <pickproparts.com>, where Lexus parts could be bought, but alongside parts for more than thirty other brands. On the issue of bad faith that inevitably arose for decision, the Panel said:
- “Paragraph 4(b) of the Policy cites four non-exclusive circumstances that indicate bad faith in registering and using a domain name. The fourth is strikingly apposite here: using a domain name intentionally to attract Internet users to a site for commercial gain, by creating a likelihood of confusion with the complainant’s mark (Policy, paragraph 4(b)(iv)). The Respondent confusingly employs the Complainant’s marks in the Domain Names to attract Internet users to the Respondent’s commercial site, where the Respondent attempts to sell Complainant’s parts, as well as those of its competitors, evidently for commercial gain. This constitutes bad faith under paragraph 4(b)(iv) of the Policy. See Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A., Inc. v. I.E. Mann d/b/a Everything Internet, FA0411000370902 (Nat. Arb. Forum, January 11, 2005), <autotoyotaparts.com> (respondent “commercially benefits from this diversion by selling products and services to Internet users who are searching under Complainant’s mark”); Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A., Inc. v. Indian Springs Motor, FA0305000157289 (Nat. Arb. Forum, June 23, 2003), <glennstoyota.com> and <usedtoyotalexus.com> (bad faith may be inferred where a respondent profits from its “diversionary use” of the complainant’s mark in a domain name that resolves to a commercial website and the respondent fails to respond with a plausible good-faith reason for using the mark)”.
- Those observations are equally applicable to the present case and show that, within the meaning of paragraph 4(b)(iv), there has been bad faith registration and use.
- Using a party’s name to redirect Internet users to an unrelated commercial site for profit is recognized under the Policy as evidence of bad faith registration and use (Policy, Paragraph 4(b)(iv)).
NO ADMINISTRATIVELY COMPLIANT RESPONSE HAS BEEN FILED.
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