FACTS ASSERTED BY THE COMPLAINANT AND NOT CONTESTED BY THE RESPONDENT:
The Complainant is the one of largest French and European retail bank, exclusively using the CREDIT AGRICOLE trademark for a several banking services as: insurance management asset, leasing and factoring, consumer credit, corporate and investment. It owns several trademarks and domain names composed or consistent in the CREDIT AGRICOLE words, and has reported a number of successful domain names disputes.
The Complainant asserts that the disputed domain names are confusingly similar to its registered trademarks, as they are merely made of a typo squatting of the trademark CREDIT AGRICOLE by displaying the misspelling GERICOLE instead of AGRICOLE, and the addition of the letter and number L6 at the end of the disputed domain name separated by a hyphen.
The Complainant argues that the Respondent is not affiliated with nor authorized by CREDIT AGRICOLE S.A. in any way and is not related in any way to its business. The Complainant does not carry out any activity for, nor has any business with the Respondent and neither licence nor authorization has been granted to the Respondent to make any use of the Complainant’s trademarks CREDIT AGRICOLE®, or apply for registration of the disputed domain names by the Complainant. The Complainant further contends that the disputed domain names were used to phishing activities and that there is a pattern of conduct by the Respondent, registering disputed domain names to misdirect and mislead the Complainants' customers. The Complainant summarizes that the Respondent has no rights or legitimate interest on the disputed domain name and that it has registered the domain name only in order to create a likelihood of confusion and trying to generate commercial gain.
Finally, the Complainant asserts that the Respondent has registered the disputed domain names with full knowledge of the Complainant's trademarks in an effort to take advantage of the Complainant’s goodwill, and to unduly benefit from creating a diversion of the internet users of the Complainant by pretending to be the official website of the Complainant. The Complainant contends that the Respondent is attempting to pass itself off as the Complainant by using its registered trademarks CREDIT AGRICOLE® in violation of Policy. The Complainant therefore finds that the Respondent has registered the disputed domain names in bad faith and has used the disputed domain names to attract Internet users on its website by creating a likelihood of confusion with the Complainant’s trademark as to source, affiliation or endorsement, in the meaning of paragraph 4(b)(iv) of the Policy, and thus acted in bad faith.
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