a. The disputed domain name consists of the words 'Hennessy', 'day' and 'party', followed by the generic top level domain ("gTLD") ".com", that may be disregarded in the assessment of the similarity of the disputed domain name to the HENNESSY trademark. As opposed to the fairly discriptive words 'day' and 'party' the Panel finds the term "Hennessy" to be highly distinctive and therefore to be the dominant element of the disputed domain name, to which the average member of the public will pay the most attention. The Panel considers that the dominant element of the disputed domain name is identical to the HENNESSY trademark and therefore finds the disputed domain name to be confusingly similar to the HENNESSY trademark, pursuant to paragraph 4(a)(i) of the Policy.
b. The Panel is satisfied that the Respondent has not been licensed or authorised to use the HENNESSY trademark in the disputed domain name. The Panel further finds that the Respondent has succesfully submitted prima facie evidence that the Respondent has made no use of, or demonstrable preparations to use, the disputed domain name in connection with a bona fide offering of goods or servies, nor is it making a legitimate non-commercial or fair use of the disputed domain name. Use of the disputed domain name to redirect users to the Complainant's website does not qualify as a legitimate non-commercial or fair use by the Respondent. The Panel therefore finds the Respondent has no rights or legitimate interests in respect of the disputed domain name.
c. The Respondent has provided sufficient evidence of the fame of the HENNESSY trademark, that was registered in multiple jurisdictions several decades before the disputed domain name. Further, the HENNESSY trademark is sufficiently distinctive to discount the possibility the HENNESSY trademark was used in the disputed domain name by accident. For these reasons, and in absence of a Response, the Panel is in no doubt that the original registrant of the disputed domain name must have had the HENNESSY trademark in mind when registering the disputed domain name. Therefore, the Panel finds that the disputed domain name was registered in bad faith. The transfer of the disputed domain name to the current registrant (i.e. the Respondent), does not prevent a finding of registration in bad faith.
As the Complainant has further rightly indicated, Panels have held that use of an infringing domain name to redirect to the complainants own website can still be considered as use of the domain name in bad faith. In absence of a Response in which circumstances may have been presented that would justify the use of the domain name, the Panel finds that the use of the disputed domain name to redirect users to the Complainant's website at <www.hennessy.com> qualifies as use of the disputed domain name in bad faith.
For the reasons stated above, the Panel finds that all three elements under the paragraph 4(a) of the Policy have been proved by the Complainant.
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