EPIK locked them down when Mr. Petretta's lawyer sent them a mail requesting so. Just so simple. When I told them it's not a court order but a mere court filing, they unlocked the domains briefly. But then locked them back saying that we lock domains on court filings also. First telling me it's a court order, then accepting it's a mere court filing. You are so much at the whim of registrars.
They been locked about 6 months (August 2020) now since the court case was filed. There never was and, to date, there hasn't been ANY ORDER from the court regarding placing locks on these domains or maintaining status-quo. EPIK's bravado is on its own. Who knows how many years this may take?
The whole point is that once there is a court order, the domain can be recovered from almost any registrar. Domain locking shouldn't depend on the whim of registrars. NameCheap.com is much better if they don't do that.
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For those not aware, this is a high profile case of a whole stack of
allegedly stolen domains:
https://domainnamewire.com/2020/09/29/stolen-go-domains-end-up-in-court-battle/
In my experience, the only practical way to unwind a domain
theft is to stop the daisy-chain of fraudulent conveyance. Once the domain has hopped twice, it is mighty hard to roll it back. By the time the domain has hopped 3 times, the registrant who lost the domain has a near impossible task.
In June 2020, GoCars.com got a TM complaint. At the time, I intervened on behalf of the registrant, and told the complainant to pound sand and/or get a court order - see partial excerpt:
As should be obvious, I had the registrant's back.
However, as mentioned above, the case with domain THEFT is different. The daisy chain of fraudulent conveyance has to be stopped in its tracks in order to accomplish anything.
As for these Go names, there are a few of them in Sunil's account. When the alleged former registrant's counsel approached us about locking the domains, the abuse team would have told them "get a court order".
In August 2020, I see our abuse department was approached by outside counsel requesting a domain lock for allegedly STOLEN domains. In that case, Sarah, likely did the right thing.
In the meantime, I did not hear from the registrant, so I don't know Sunil's side of the story. I suggest Sunil email me privately and will see what we can do to get the matter settled.
In past cases like this one, I have been able to get the complainant to compensate the unwitting victim so that they were restored. If Sunil wants that help to settle the matter, happy to do it
pro bono.
Even if there is a court order, confirming that there was a domain theft, the registrant likely still has the right to appeal the outcome through injunction or otherwise, assuming it was not conveyed in bad faith.
At the end of the day, domain theft is a problem in this industry. That is why Epik funded DNProtect.com, led by
@bhartzer, to prevent, track and warrant against domain loss or impairment. Check it out.
All that said, I would be interested to get the perspective of the domain attorneys here as to whether they agree with the plaintiff's counsel in their interpretation of the law. See his correspondence:
The lawsuit was filed on August 11, 2020. We were approached on August 26, 2020. We took no locking action on the domain whatsoever until August 28, 2020.
I see that these domains are also being promptly released by the court, as was the case with this one where the domain was since sold on Epik.
Also, for the record, I had not personally reviewed this case until this morning.
As for the remaining locked names, if there are transactions to be done in the meantime, we would just make sure the buyer is aware that there is litigation related to the domain.
I am pretty sure there is a win-win still sitting on the horizon with this one and I doubt Sunil is going to be left holding the drippy bag.