Nominet Dispute Resolution Service (DRS), which oversees all .uk domains has ruled in favour of the Glasgow based bank and ordered Eric Cheng to hand over the domain CYBFX.co.uk. The domain in question reflected the brand of the bank’s parent company, The Clydesdale and Yorkshire Banking Group and the Forex (FX) currency market while Cheng had no such affiliation.

The China based cybersquatter poached the branded domain name and refused to return it unless the bank forked over almost £100,000. He decided to snap up the domain the day after the bank’s CYBFX trademark application had been filed to the Intellectual Property Office, essentially nabbing it from under their noses.

Despite several overtures by the bank, he adamantly refused to return it unless the bank met his financial demands. Cheng who has an office registered in Beijing has been using the domain to divert traffic to other websites offering financial services. The DRS have branded his actions as an Abusive Registration, this is when a domain name is being or has been used in a manner which has taken unfair advantage of or has been unfairly detrimental to the Complainant’s Rights.

This ruling is likely to be welcomed by local Scottish towns who have recently been facing a similar situation involving a cybersquatter who is trying to get them to cough up as much as  £5,000 for domain names such as Cumbernauld.co.uk.

Unfair Domain Registration

Dr Russell Richardson, an independent legal practitioner who participates in DRS, said: “The Expert (an independent adjudicator) considers that the use of the Domain Name has taken unfair advantage of the complainant’s rights by seeking to rely on the complainant’s goodwill and reputation in the mark to generate web traffic to the website, and to the ‘parked’ websites promoted on the website, that was meant for the complainant.”

“The registration of the particular wording is also unfairly detrimental to the complainant as web users are likely to conclude that the complainant has registered the Domain Name for the provision of services in relation to the complainant’s banking currency exchange products, which is not the case. The Expert considers that there is no obvious justification for the respondent having registered the Domain Name.”