legal Air Serbia lost 3-letter .COM (jat.com) and fails to get it back

[domain hacks]

Air Serbia (part of Etihad) forget (?) to renew valuable 3 letter .COM and when they noticed the mistake they file for UDRP Complaint with the WIPO Center just to lose the arbitrage.

Serbian national air carrier, Air Serbia, was first established some 90 years ago under Aeroput, later (in 1947) rebranded into Jugoslovenski aero-transport, later Jat Airways and now is known as Air Serbia. Since 1947 all the way to 2013 company used JAT (short from Jugoslovenski aero-transport ) as their brand name. In 2013, the company was privatized and Etihad bought 49% of shares.

Company website was also jat.com (since 1997) until they switched to airserbia.com

I personally got interested in domain jat.com since they redirected jat.com to their new site and I had the feeling that they really didn’t care that much about that nice 3 letter domain. I tried to get in touch with a person that registered the domain but never got an answer. the person listed on domain WHOIS data was IT engineer in Air Serbia.

If losing valuable domain wasn’t enough they made another mistake. They decided to file for WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) arbitration. WIPO is not an organization that is going to fall for fancy lawyers and stupid excuses. Looks like Air Serbia thought they will.

More here : http://nenadseo.com/air-serbia-lost-jat-domain/

 

[Primary Names]

Great read.

 

[Amar D]

They are my neighbor country :D

 

[Acroplex]

They didn't forget to renew the domain. There is evidence of other activity, including a potential unlawful sale of the domain by an employee. In the UDRP, the respondent did not respond but their information in the WHOIS isn't accurate. Their info was changed before the UDRP was filed.

 

[1Darko]

It shouldn't be any problem for JAT to buy back the domain. They will have to price up the extra luggage of customers in 2018

 

[Kate]

It is possible that the domain name was hijacked, and that could be the reason why E-mail is still being forwarded to the complainant. I would not purchase this name if it were put on the market today.

Turning to the second limb of the Complainant’s case on bad faith, the Complainant submits that email to the disputed domain name is being automatically redirected to the Complainant’s <airserbia.com> domain name and that this indicates both knowledge and intent on the part of the Respondent to target the Complainant.

In the second place, there is no evidence before the Panel which demonstrates whether the Respondent has taken any part in the alleged readdressing of email to the Complainant’s <airserbia.com> domain name. No email headers were produced demonstrating the path which the email took across the Internet. No contemporaneous MX record lookup at the disputed domain name was produced demonstrating that the disputed domain name was even configured to receive email services at the time when the test took place.

But the complaint is shoddy, they could not even produce an E-mail with the resulting headers...

...
Should subsequent evidence come to light which would demonstrate a bad faith intent on the Respondent’s part, it is possible that a future panel may entertain a refiling of this Complaint (on this topic, see section 4.18 of the WIPO Overview 3.0). However, if the Complainant chooses to refile the Complaint at some point in the future, this Panel would certainly expect the Complainant to provide a full and complete description of the history of the disputed domain name and the Complainant’s part in that history along with relevant new evidence.

What is clear in the complaint is the very poor record-keeping practices of the complainant. There is not even a timeline of events.
Companies need to be more careful with their digital assets. Do not leave control to a single employee (who could go rogue, die, or simply quit the company without leaving records). There should be some sort of executive lock on valuable domains. Some registrars allow you to set up multiple user accounts with granular access rights.

 

[offthehandle]

Thanks for posting. @domain hacks Good to see articles written by people “outside” of the loop.

 

[snuzzyki]

So what is the solution here even they accidently forgot to include the renewal auto payment or just forgot to renew it and a newbie claimed it , even tho they would be first in line to regain it ? Is this fair ? what is fair in your opinions ?

 

[Acroplex]

The domain wasn't "forgotten." Nor did it drop and "caught" as the OP here says. Like Kate said, the domain was either stolen/hijacked or it was an insider job.

But yes, the former Yugoslav airline's lawyers didn't do due diligence on who manages the domain, nor did the panelist.

If you want to know who manages it now, query the matching .CO.

 

[platey]

It's a 7 figure name if this dispute can be resolved

It has value as jat people etc

In the uk personalised number plates sell for good money

and let's just say JAT plates are highly sought after

 

[JanO]

The domain wasn't "forgotten." Nor did it drop and "caught" as the OP here says. Like Kate said, the domain was either stolen/hijacked or it was an insider job.

But yes, the former Yugoslav airline's lawyers didn't do due diligence on who manages the domain, nor did the panelist.

If you want to know who manages it now, query the matching .CO.

Jat is also a slang verb in Dutch meaning steal. Ironic