Decision for dispute CAC-UDRP-100034

The Panel is not aware of the existence of other proceedings concerning the disputed domain name.

The Complainant, Le Républicain Lorrain SA is a French Publishing company that publishes the French regional newspaper named Le Republicain Lorrain, which was created on June 19th 1919.

The Complainant created a website to support its publishing activities, operating from republicain-lorrain.fr, registered on June 11th 1996. Likewise, the Complainant is the registered owner of the French trademark Le Republicain Lorrain filed on April 27, 2005, and also is the registrant of the domain names republicain-lorrain.eu, registered since 29 September 2006; republicain-lorrain.net, registered since 19 November 2001; republicain-lorrain.org, registered since 19 November 2001, and republicain-lorrain.info, registered since 30 June 2007, some of these domain names being registered on behalf of the Complainant by its computing subsidiary, the company Victoria Multimédia.

The Respondent registered the disputed domain name, “republicainlorrain.com” on January 30th 2005, and in accordance with its brief, Respondent contracts with Hitfarm which connects its own websites to the domain name to offer a legitimate business of targeted advertising searches.