Decision for dispute CAC-UDRP-107817

The Panel is not aware of any other legal proceedings which are pending or decided and which relate to the disputed domain name.

• The Complainant owns several trademarks, including the following relevant trademark registrations:
  
  - the International trademark n° 920896 for the word mark “INTESA SANPAOLO”, registered on March 7, 2007 for goods and services in classes 9, 16, 35, 36, 41 and 42;
  
  - the European Union trademark n° 005301999 for the word mark “INTESA SANPAOLO”, registered on June 18, 2007, for services in classes 35, 36 and 38.

The Complainant is an Italian banking group, which results from the merger (effective as of January 1, 2007) between Banca Intesa S.p.A. and Sanpaolo IMI S.p.A., two Italian banking groups.

The Complainant has a market capitalization exceeding 91,62 billion Euro. The Complainant has a network of approximately 2,800 branches in Italy, and offers its services to approximately 13,9 million customers. The Complainant  has a strong presence in Central-Eastern Europe with a network of approximately 900 branches and over 7,6 million customers, and is present in 25 countries, including the United States of America, Russia, China and India.

The Respondent registered the disputed domain name on May 19, 2025. The disputed domain name resolves to a website promoting banking and financial services which are similar to those offered by the Complainant.

The Complainant contends that the requirements of the Policy have been met and that the disputed domain name should be transferred to it.

No administratively compliant Response has been filed.

The Complainant has, to the satisfaction of the Panel, shown the disputed domain name is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark or service mark in which the Complainant has rights (within the meaning of paragraph 4(a)(i) of the Policy).

The Complainant has, to the satisfaction of the Panel, shown the Respondent to have no rights or legitimate interests in respect of the disputed domain name (within the meaning of paragraph 4(a)(ii) of the Policy).

The Complainant has, to the satisfaction of the Panel, shown the disputed domain name has been registered and is being used in bad faith (within the meaning of paragraph 4(a)(iii) of the Policy).

The Panel is satisfied that all procedural requirements under UDRP were met and there is no other reason why it would be inappropriate to provide a decision.

1. The Panel finds that the disputed domain name is confusingly similar to the "INTESA SANPAOLO" trademarks as the only difference between the disputed domain name and the Complainant's trademarks is the addition of "e-" before the Complainant’s trademark and the use of a hyphen between the two elements of the trademark. These differences are insignificant to the overall impression.
2. The Complainant must make a prima facie case that the Respondent lacks rights or legitimate interests in the disputed domain name, which the Respondent may rebut (e.g., Croatia Airlines d.d. v. Modern Empire Internet Ltd., WIPO Case No. D2003-0455). The Panel takes note of the various allegations of the Complainant and in particular, that no authorization has been given by the Complainant to the Respondent to use the Complainant's INTESA SANPAOLO trademarks or to register the disputed domain name and that the Respondent has not been commonly known by the disputed domain name. These allegations of the Complainant remain unchallenged. There is no evidence before the Panel to show that the Respondent has rights or legitimate interests in the disputed domain name.
3. In the absence of a Response, and given that the Panel has considered the Complainant’s INTESA SANPAOLO to be a well-known trademark before (inter alia CAC-UDRP-106617 and CAC-UDRP-104383; just as other panels, e.g., CAC-UDRP-107757 and CAC-UDRP-107818), the Panel infers that the Respondent must have had the Complainant's INTESA SANPAOLO trademarks in mind when registering the disputed domain name. The disputed domain name was used to resolve to a website with similar banking products as those offered by the Complainant. The Panel is therefore satisfied that the disputed domain name was registered and used in bad faith.