Source: https://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/decisions/html/2006/d2006-0300.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 00:23:14+00:00

Document:
The Complainant is Asset Loan Co. Pty Ltd, Queensland, Australia, represented by Mallesons Stephen Jacques, Australia.
The Respondent is Gregory Rogers, New South Wales, Australia.
The disputed domain name <assetloanco.net> is registered with Tucows.
The Complaint was filed with the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center (the “Center”) on March 9, 2006. On March 9, 2006, the Center transmitted by email to Tucows a request for registrar verification in connection with the domain name at issue. On March 9, 2006 Tucows transmitted by email to the Center its verification response confirming that the Respondent is listed as the registrant and providing the contact details for the administrative, billing, and technical contact. The Center verified that the Complaint satisfied the formal requirements of the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (the “Policy”), the Rules for Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (the “Rules”), and the WIPO Supplemental Rules for Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (the “Supplemental Rules”).
In accordance with the Rules, paragraphs 2(a) and 4(a), the Center formally notified the Respondent of the Complaint, and the proceedings commenced on March 15, 2006. In accordance with the Rules, paragraph 5(a), the due date for Response was April�4,�2006. The Response was filed with the Center March 28, 2006.
The Center appointed The Honourable Neil Anthony Brown QC, Dawn Osborne and Michael J. Spence as panelists in this matter on April 18, 2006. The Panel finds that it was properly constituted. Each member of the Panel has submitted the Statement of Acceptance and Declaration of Impartiality and Independence, as required by the Center to ensure compliance with the Rules, paragraph 7.
The Complainant is an Australian company engaged in the finance industry. It was incorporated on January 27, 2004. It is the subsidiary of Asset Loans Ltd which was incorporated on August 1, 2000, and listed on the Australian Stock Exchange on November 11, 2004.
On January 20, 2003, the Complainant registered the domain name <assetloanco.com>. It has a website at “www.assetloanco.com” (‘the Complainant’s website’).
The mark also includes a logo depicting the image described above.
The Respondent registered the contentious domain name on May 22, 2005. The domain name resolves to the website at “www.assetloanco.net” (‘the Respondent’s website’).
The Respondent is also resident in Australia and was previously a customer of Asset Loan Company Pty Ltd, a different but related company to the Complainant.
Without reaching any conclusions about or expressing any views on the merits of the litigation, it is apparent from the filings of both sides that there has been something of a falling out and a history of litigation between the Respondent and interests associated with him on the one hand and the Complainant and interests associated with it on the other.
The Respondent is an undischarged bankrupt, having been made so on a hearing that occurred on November 24, 2004, a certificate to that effect having been issued by the Insolvency and Trustee Service Australia and constituting Annex 4 to the Complaint.
The Complainant alleges that the contentious domain name <assetloanco.net> should no longer be registered with the Respondent but that it should be transferred to the Complainant.
It contends that this should be done because, within the meaning of paragraph�4 the Policy, the domain name is identical or confusingly similar to the Complainant’s registered trademark, that the Respondent has no rights or legitimate interests in the domain name and that the domain name has been registered and subsequently used in bad faith. The Complainant maintains that it can prove all three of these requirements and that the appropriate remedy is to transfer the domain name to the Complainant.
In support of its case on the first of these three elements, the Complainant maintains that the domain name <assetloanco.net> is identical to the Australian trademark set out above and that the only difference between the two is the addition of the suffix ‘.net.’ The Complainant then contends, to establish the second element, that the Respondent has no rights or interests in the domain name because he has never had any intention of using the domain name in connection with a bona fide offering of goods or services, his sole intention has been to trick and confuse internet users into thinking that the domain name and the website to which it resolves belong to the Complainant and that he cannot properly claim that the domain name is being used for a legitimate criticism site.
Finally, the Complainant alleges that the domain name was registered and is being used in bad faith. It contends that this is so because, although the Respondent’s conduct ‘does not fall strictly within the four criteria listed in Paragraph 4 (b) of the Policy’, these tests are not exclusive and his conduct nevertheless with respect to both the registration and use of the domain name amount to bad faith. This is so, the Complainant contends, because the Respondent registered the domain name to confuse internet users, he has posted on the website material illegally taken from the Complainant’s own site, he deliberately uses metatags to direct users to his site and the site itself is being used as a bargaining tool with the Complainant and for disseminating baseless and defamatory accusations against the Complainant and its directors which have severely damaged their reputations. This conduct in its totality, it is said, constitutes bad faith.
The Respondent denies each and every one of the Complainant’s contentions. He says, first, that the Complainant’s trademark does not consist of the combined word ‘assetloanco’ that appears in the domain name, but rather the eight (sic) specific words “ASSET LOAN CO. DISCRETION ASSURED ALTERNATIVE FINANCING” together with an image. Accordingly, he contends, the domain name is neither identical to or confusingly similar to the trademark and in any event he, the Respondent, does not use the actual trademark on his website.
Secondly, he says that the owner of the Complainant’s domain name <assetloanco.com> is ‘Asset Loan Company’, not the Complainant and that the Complainant accordingly has no rights in <assetloanco.com> and hence no ground for complaint about the registration of <assetloanco.net>.
Thirdly, he says that the words ‘asset loan co’ are generic in nature and by inference that another party cannot complain when those words are used in a domain name as the Respondent has used them.
For all of these reasons the Respondent maintains that the domain name is not identical to or confusingly similar to any trademark in which the Complainant has rights.
He also contends that his website ‘came first’, that it was registered before the Complainant registered its trademark and that he does not use it to sell products or services of a similar nature to the Complainant but merely to criticize the Complainant and warn people about it.
Finally, the Respondent denies that he registered or used the domain name in bad faith, for his objective was to warn the public, he has never asked the Complainant for money, his website carries a warning that it is not “www.assetloanco.com”, he has not engaged in trickery or pretence that his website is the Complainant’s and the Complainant cannot complain about his domain name when it, the Complainant, does not own a domain name itself.
The Respondent maintains, therefore, that the Complaint should be dismissed and that there has been such an abuse of the process that the Panel should make a finding of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking against the Complainant.
The Respondent has submitted several emails which the Panel will regard as supplementary filings and the question thus arises whether the Panel should have regard to them in the course of its deliberations.
(c) an email from the Respondent to the Center dated April 17, 2006, which says that Mallesons, have not sent to the Center a copy of a deed that relates to the transfer of the contentious domain, alleges that the Complainant was not honest in that it had not honoured the deed and attaching two photo images.
Supplementary filings may be admitted under paragraph 12 of the Rules and under the power conferred on the Panel by paragraph 10 of the Rules to conduct the administrative proceeding in such manner as it considers appropriate in accordance with the Policy and the Rules. A number of UDRP panels have held that additional submissions are inappropriate except in exceptional circumstances, such as the existence of new, pertinent facts that did not arise until after the submission of the Complaint or Response or arguments by the Respondent that the other party could not reasonably have anticipated, see e.g. Top Driver, Inc. v. Benefits Benefits, WIPO Case No. D2002-0972, Radan Corp. v. Rabazzini Winery, WIPO Case No. D2003-0353.
The reason for a restrictive application of paragraph 12 of the Rules is that additional submissions may delay the administrative proceeding and thereby undermine the Policy’s intention of providing a rapid and cost effective domain name dispute resolution.
The Panel accepts and agrees with the general propositions just set out. Having considered those principles, the Panel has decided to consider the supplementary filings and take them into account. In reaching this decision the Panel has been influenced by the following factors which it believes constitute exceptional circumstances. First, the supplementary filings reached the members of the Panel virtually at the same time that they received the papers as a whole and before it had commenced its deliberations and there will therefore be no delay occasioned by considering the additional submissions. Secondly, the supplementary filings do to some extent complete the picture and it is wise to have all of the facts before the Panel. Thirdly, although the Complainant is represented, the Respondent is not and the Panel would not want the Respondent or any observer to think that he was at a disadvantage.
The Panel would like to assure the Respondent on this and all other issues that it is taking into account everything that he puts before it.
The Panel will therefore take the additional material into account.
The Complainant must therefore establish all three of the elements specified in paragraph�4(a) of the Policy on the balance of probabilities before an order can be made to transfer the domain name.
That being so, the Panel will now proceed to enquire if the Complainant has discharged its onus to prove each of the three elements specified in paragraph�4(a) of the Policy.
The Complainant contends that the domain name is identical to the trademark. The Panel does not accept that submission. The word ‘identical’ means ‘the same’ or ‘exactly alike’. The domain name is not the same as or exactly like the trademark, for as well as the words ‘ASSET LOAN CO’ that constitute the domain name, the trademark includes the additional words ‘DISCRETION ASSURED ALTERNATIVE FINANCING’ and a logo. The additional words and the logo have not been incorporated into the domain name. The two concepts are therefore not identical or exactly the same.
The Panel concludes, however, that the domain name is similar to the trademark and confusingly so. That is so for the following reasons. First, the test to be used is to assess how a reasonable bystander would construe the wording of the domain name compared with the trademark. In the opinion of the Panel, the dominant thrust of the trademark is to convey to the reader the name Asset Loan Co and it is this concept that makes up the entirety of the domain name. The fact that the trademark adds that the Asset Loan Co provides alternative financing with discretion is clearly secondary and subsidiary to the name itself and simply qualifies it.
In any event, as the unchallenged evidence is that ‘the Complainant has established a well known reputation’, it clearly has an unregistered trademark in that name and the domain name incorporates its entire name.
“1.2 Is the content of a web site relevant in determining confusing similarity?
Consensus view: The content of a website (whether it is similar or different to the business of a trademark owner) is irrelevant in the finding of confusing similarity. This is because trademark holders often suffer from “initial interest confusion”, where a potential visitor does not immediately reach their site after typing in a confusingly similar domain name, and is then exposed to offensive or commercial content. The test for confusing similarity should be a comparison between the trademark and the domain name to determine the likelihood of confusion.
The Panel accepts and will apply those principles.
But in any event and quite apart from those decisions, the Panel is required to apply the Policy, which in the plain words of paragraph 4(a)(i) invites a comparison solely between the contentious domain name and the trademark or service mark in question and admits of no other material. The Panel will therefore confine itself to a comparison between the domain name and the registered trademark without having regard for this purpose to the website.
However, it has also been decided in other UDRP proceedings that the website may be looked at for the purpose of determining the other two questions arising in such proceedings as these, namely whether the respondent has rights or a legitimate interest in the domain name and whether he registered and has used it in bad faith. In this regard it will be seen later in this decision that the Panel has in fact looked at the website and made use of its contents in answering those questions.
The other feature involved in making the comparison that the Panel is obliged to make is that the domain name must be compared with the entirety of the trademark. In this regard, as the Respondent points out, it must be noted that the mark is a composite one, featuring not only the words set out above, but a logo as well. The question, then, is whether the domain name is identical or confusingly similar to this composite mark.
That type of question is not always easy to resolve, for the figurative or graphic part of a trademark cannot be translated into a domain name and a true comparison is therefore difficult to make.
There is also another of the Respondent’s arguments that must be addressed here. On many occasions in the course of his submissions, the Respondent contended that the Complainant does not own a domain name itself and that in particular it does not own the domain name <assetloanco.com>. The basis for this contention is that the domain name is registered not in the name of the Complainant, but in the name of Asset Loan Co, that that entity is not a registered company or business name, that accordingly it does not exist and that hence it cannot own a domain name. The Respondent uses this argument, amongst other purposes, to contend that it is not the Complainant that owns <assetloanco.com>, but rather the fictitious and unregistered Asset Loan Co and that the Complainant therefore cannot complain about another party’s registering the similar <assetloanco.net>.
It is appropriate to say here that, although this is an interesting argument, it really cannot assist the Respondent. That is so for several reasons. First, it does not matter in these proceedings whether the Complainant owns a domain name or not. The question is whether it has rights in a trademark which the Respondent has transgressed by registering and using its own domain name. Secondly, it may be true that the domain name <assetloanco.com> is registered in the name of an unincorporated or unregistered body, Asset Loan Co. But even if it is, it is clear that the Complainant itself is incorporated, that it trades under that name and that it is the registered owner of the trademark in question. Accordingly, whatever may be said about the body described as ‘Asset Loan Co’ it is clear that the Complainant itself can and does complain about the registration of the domain name and can therefore bring these proceedings.
But in any event, the Respondent’s many submissions that stem from this issue are really misconceived. That is so because the sole issue here is whether the domain name at issue, i.e. the domain name <assetloanco.net>, the domain name registered by the Respondent, has been properly registered and used and not whether some other domain name, either <assetloanco.com> or any other domain name, has been invalidly registered and used.
The other submission of the Respondent is that the words ‘Asset Loan Co’ are generic and presumably that they may be used in a domain name with impunity. That is not so, for although the words are generic, in their present combination that take on the cachet of the Complainant and have come to be associated with the Complainant as its trademark. There is no evidence that they have come to be associated with any other person or company. The Complainant is therefore entitled to argue that the domain name is identical or confusingly similar to its trademark in that name.
Finally, it is now well established that the use of suffixes like ‘.net’ cannot defeat a conclusion of confusing similarity for they are part of every domain name.
For all of these reasons the Panel concludes that the domain name is confusingly similar to the trademark. As the Complainant has rights in the trademark by virtue of being its registered owner, it has made out the first of the three elements that it must establish.
Under paragraph 4(a)(ii), the Complainant has the burden of establishing that the Respondent has no rights or legitimate interests in respect of the domain name.
Thus, if the Respondent proves any of these elements or indeed anything else that shows that it has a right or interest in the domain name, the Complainant will have failed to discharge its onus and the complaint will fail.
In the present case, the Respondent does not seek to bring himself within either paragraph 4(c)(i) or (ii). Rather, he says that he is covered by paragraph 4(c) (iii) because he is making a legitimate noncommercial and fair use of the contentious domain name.
The legitimate noncommercial and fair use he relies on is the use of the domain name for a website, as he puts it, ‘…to alert the public to the criminal and unlawful corporate conduct of the company.’ The Respondent adds that ‘(w)arning the public about dishonest businesses and people is a legitimate use of a domain name.’ In other words, the Respondent maintains that he is operating what is often referred to as a criticism or protest site.
Accordingly, it is probably fair to say that the Respondent is contending that his objective is to criticize, but also to warn.
‘The Panel is well aware that a number of distinguished Panelists take the view that a bona fide non-commercial criticism site connected to a domain name featuring the trade mark of a subject of the criticism is fair use of the domain name for the purposes of the Policy’.
That view has been applied in such cases as Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association v. Paul McCauley, WIPO Case No. D2004-0014.
Other panelists, however, including the panelist in the Bonneterie Case (supra) have taken a contrary view; see also Monty and Pat Roberts, Inc. v. J. Bartell, WIPO Case No. D2000-0300. Other panelists are not prepared to say that it can never be the case that criticism sites will generate rights and legitimate interests in the domain name holder, but that whether they do or not will depend on the individual facts of each case.
The history of this argument and some of the tests that have been applied in determining such issues are examined in Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association v. Paul McCauley, (supra) and Covance, Inc. and Covance Laboratories Ltd. v. The Covance Campaign, WIPO Case No. D2004-0206. It is also clear that opinions are still divided on the issue even today.
What is clear, however, from all of the discussion on this issue is that a respondent must not be seen to be using the criticism site for commercial gain. If that is really what the respondent is doing, the conduct is contrary to the plain words of paragraph 4(c)(iii) of the Policy and hence it cannot give rise to a legitimate interest.
The test to be used to apply that principle to the facts of a given case is whether the panel is satisfied that the respondent has brought itself within the wording of the part of paragraph 4 that it relies on. It is true that the overall onus of proving its case in the present proceedings remains on the Complainant, but the Respondent has squarely put his reliance on the notion of the criticism site in issue and it is up to the Respondent to make out that part of his case.
Having considered all of the evidence, the Panel in the present case is not satisfied that the Respondent has brought itself within the exemption in paragraph 4(c)(iii) and, indeed, the conclusion reached by the Panel is that on the balance of probabilities the Respondent is in fact using the domain name for a commercial purpose and has done so since he registered the domain name. That puts the Respondent outside the terms of paragraph 4(c)(iii). The commercial purpose is to use the domain name and the website as a form of leverage to bring to an end the litigation in which he is involved with the Complainant and its associates.
It might be said that it is too broad to describe the intention of the Respondent as being to achieve a commercial purpose. However, a study of the claims at issue in the litigation, without in any way making a judgment on their veracity, shows that they concern such a number of properties and such a large sum of money and that they arise from such an essentially business and commercial relationship between parties who were engaged in commerce, that there is no way that the dispute can be described in any way other than commercial. The use being made of the domain name by the Respondent is therefore commercial.
‘Clearly the site is having an effect as fewer people seem to want to invest in a company as shareholder and my web site receives considerably more & more traffic.
This email suggests that the Respondent was interested in whether his site effected investment in the Complainant and noted that it had apparently achieved its purpose. Further, the Respondent in this email promised to shut down the website if his other disputes were settled, suggesting that its purpose was more to gain leverage in these negotiations than as a non-commercial site.
All of this being so, no matter what criticism or protest is being engendered by the web site and no matter what the merits or otherwise of the issues canvassed, the criticism and protest are not ‘a legitimate noncommercial …use of the domain name…’ within the meaning of paragraph 4(c)(iii) of the Policy.
Nor can such a use be described as ‘fair’ when the real purpose of operating the website is concealed behind the veneer of criticism and protest.
Furthermore, it has been widely held that to constitute a website as a criticism or protest site for present purposes, the domain name itself must normally indicate that the site to which it leads is not an official site of the trademark owner, but a separate site that is given over to criticism of the company, person or organization concerned. In other words, internet users must normally be warned in advance that if they follow the domain name it will lead to such a site. If that is not done, some internet users will believe that the contentious domain name is in fact an official domain name of the company or person embodied in the domain name. In other words to be a true criticism or protest site, the domain name and the web address must normally say that it is and not masquerade as an official domain name and site. One of the panelists, Dr. Spence, believes that there may be circumstances in which the use of a domain name identical, or confusingly similar to, a trademark, is an appropriate way of identifying a criticism site. None of the panelists, however, believes the present case to be such a one.
In the present case, the Respondent has done nothing to make it clear that his is a domain name that will lead to a site that will criticize or protest against the Asset Loan Co and everything to suggest that his is a domain name that will lead to an official site of the Asset Loan Co.
The Respondent made a deliberate choice and took the domain name ‘<assetloanco.net>’, clearly intending to invoke the name of the company with which it had had a long and acrimonious dispute and, without any qualification, inviting the viewer to believe it would lead, not to a site protesting about or criticizing the Asset Loan Co, but to a legitimate site on behalf of the company itself. See in this regard: Delta Air Transport NV (trading as SN Brussels Airlines) v. Theodule De Souza, WIPO Case No.�D2003-0372; Hollenbeck Youth Center, Inc. v. Stephen Rowland, WIPO Case No.�D2004-0032; Banque Cantonale de Geneve v. Primatex Group S.A., WIPO Case No.�D2001-0477; and Triodos Bank NV v. Ashley Dobbs, WIPO Case No.�D2002-0776.
Moreover, the Panel can only infer that the Respondent knew that that is the way that viewers would interpret his choice of domain name and his decision not to qualify the name in any way.
Finally, the Panel notes that vigorous argument will undoubtedly continue in future proceedings on the question whether a criticism site can constitute a right or legitimate interest in the domain name and, if so, under what circumstances that situation will apply. One such circumstance that will be debated will be whether the contents of the site must be fair or proportionate to its legitimate purpose. Some commentators will continue to argue that the criticism itself should be fair and should be supported by evidence, before the use being made of the domain name can be said to be legitimate.
Others will argue that that is not the role of UDRP proceedings and that only the courts of competent jurisdiction can make such judgments if and when such questions are raised.
The Panel as presently constituted is content to say that although these questions will continue to be debated, the real question in this case as in others will remain and it is whether the facts bring the case within the words of paragraph 4(c) (iii). For the reasons given, the conclusion of the Panel in the present case is that they do not.
‘The Panel further holds that the Respondent has failed to establish that he has otherwise any rights or interests legitimate in terms of paragraph 4(c) since the effect of using each of the domain names in issue is to attract into any website to which the domain name resolves persons who believe and expect they will be accessing material from the Complainant; the Panel holds this is not legitimate use of the domain name in issue’.
But here again, the Panel believes that this matter can be resolved by remembering that the facts in every case are different and by addressing the particular facts of the case before it.
In the present case, the presence of the disclaimer, even when it is reached, is negated by the fact that the first words confronting the viewer on reaching the site are not the disclaimer, but the bold title ‘Asset Loan Co.net’ which appears at the top of the page. Contrary, therefore, to the situation in The Britannia Case, the initial confusion would not be immediately dispelled but, if anything, re-enforced.
Paul Hare & Russell Percival are thieves.
Hare & Percival do not use guns and knives….they use deception and fraud.
There is however, no disclaimer or warning. The Respondent had the opportunity of rebutting this evidence which of course is to the effect that at least until the day before the Complaint was signed on March 9, 2006, he had no disclaimer or warning on his website at all. As the Panel reads the Response, he has not attempted to rebut that evidence.
Further, the two most dominant features of the home page are photographs of two directors of the Complainant which have clearly been taken from the official website and which cannot help but re-enforce the notion, at least in the minds of those who look at photographs first, that the website is an official one.
The Respondent defends the use of these photographs by saying that it is not a breach of copyright to use them, for there is no claim of copyright in the photographs made on the Complainant’s website and in any event they are in the public domain.
It is not necessary for the Panel to debate or decide this issue, for the question is not whether there is a breach of copyright, but simply whether as a matter of fact the Respondent has added the photographs to give the impression that this is a site that has something to do with the Asset Loan Co and its associates. The Panel’s view is that it would stretch credulity to breaking point to think that the inclusion of the photographs was for any purpose other than to reinforce the initial notion that users had negotiated a safe passage to the official website of the Asset Loan Co., when in fact they had not and the Respondent knew that they had not.
Some users who are lured into the site as a result and who read part of what is displayed, would be actively mislead. Some would probably take one look at the ‘Police’ sign and go elsewhere for the business query they otherwise would have directed to the Complainant. Others might possibly do so. Still others will just be confused as to which site they are in and switch off.
Whatever the result may be, it is clear that it has been brought about by the Respondent’s use of the Complainant’s trademark and name without any qualification and by, for all practical purposes, not having an effective disclaimer on the site.
It is also clear that the Respondent has had the effect of disrupting the Complainant’s business by using the Complainant’s own trademark in this manner.
Applying the words of paragraph 4(c)(iii) it was neither legitimate nor fair for the Respondent to attempt to trap internet users into believing that by following his domain name, they would be led to the website of the Asset Loan Co.
The combination of all of these factors is such that there is nothing to justify a conclusion on the particular facts of the case that the Respondent is using the domain name to conduct a legitimate criticism or protest site or that he is making any other use of the internet that can reasonably be regarded as coming within paragraph 4(c) of the Policy or as constituting a legitimate use of the domain name.
The Respondent has therefore failed to establish the right or legitimate interest in the domain name that he relies on and the Complainant has made out the second of the three elements that it must establish.
The Complainant must also prove on the balance of probabilities that the domain names were registered in bad faith and that they are being used in bad faith: Telstra Corporation Limited v. Nuclear Marshmallows, WIPO Case No.�D2000-0003.
The Complainant concedes that the conduct of the Respondent ‘does not fall strictly within the four criteria…’ That submission is understandable, because the facts do not fall precisely within the wording of paragraph 4(b)(i), (ii) or (iii) and it will probably have been assumed that it was drawing too long a bow to conclude, within the meaning of sub-paragraph (iv), that the Respondent was trying to attract users to his site for ‘commercial gain’.
But in view of the Panel’s finding that the Respondent’s purpose in trying to leverage a settlement of the litigation was a commercial purpose, the Panel has concluded that, by the same reasoning, the Respondent has been using the domain name to attract users to his site for commercial gain. The commercial gain in point is the benefit he would achieve if his campaign were successful and the Complainant were forced to withdraw or settle the proceedings.
When that element is accepted, it will be seen that the conduct also meets the description of creating confusion with the Complainant’s mark, for it must give rise to confusion whether the Asset Loan Co of the domain name is the Asset Loan Co of the trademark and the general name under which the Complainant operates.
The Respondent’s conduct therefore comes within paragraph 4(b)(iv) of the Policy and constitutes bad faith.
In any event, as the Complainant points out, the criteria set out in paragraph 4(b) are not exclusive and it has long been held that any conduct that can fairly be described as constituting bad faith is sufficient.
The conclusions already reached by the Panel on the issue of rights or legitimate interests largely determine that the Respondent’s conduct be described as bad faith both with respect to the registration and the use of the domain name.
(v) posted photographs of the directors on his website to create a further illusion of authenticity in the website.
The Respondent must also be taken to know that continuing to allow this state of affairs to exist can only cause damage to the Complainant by using its name and trademark when he, the Respondent, could advance the same issues and concerns and make the same criticisms of the Complainant simply by using a different domain name or another form of medium of dissemination such as the court proceedings.
The Panel has already reached the conclusion that the motivation for the Respondent’s registration and use of the domain name has been to try to force a settlement of the ongoing dispute and litigation between them. An examination of those proceedings that have been reported illustrates the astringent nature of the Respondent’s conduct and the extensive and serious allegations he has made.2 Without making any judgment on those matters, the fact is that the Respondent has brought the user to those issues for the purpose of achieving his objective, namely leverage of a settlement of the litigation. In so far as this conduct involves the use of the domain name it is bad faith, for it is an abuse of the proper and responsible use that all registrants should make of the internet and of domain names they have been permitted to register.
Accordingly, the Complainant has made out the third of the elements that it must establish.
For all the foregoing reasons, in accordance with Paragraphs 4(i) of the Policy and 15 of the Rules, the Panel orders that the domain name <assetloanco.net> be transferred to the Complainant.

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