domains BlackJack.com court case

[Lox]

Introduction

1. Blackjack is the most popular card game played in casinos worldwide. With the rapid recent growth in online gambling, the domain name www.blackjack.com ("the Domain Name") has acquired value.
   
2. The Claimant ("HH") seeks a declaration that it is entitled as against the Second Defendant ("Mr Croft") to ownership of the Domain Name. HH seeks a similar order in relation to what was referred to as "the Trade Mark". No registered trade marks were identified, so the term means only goodwill in a business associated with the Domain Name.
   
3. The First Defendant ("Perlake") is a dissolved Uruguayan company now in liquidation. Experts in Uruguayan law explained that notwithstanding the dissolution of Perlake, under Uruguayan law it remains in existence as a legal entity as it progresses through the process of liquidation. Perlake has not been served with the claim form and took no part in the present proceedings. Mr Croft is in effect the sole defendant. He has at all times been the owner of Perlake through bearer shares and prior to Perlake's dissolution he was the sole director of Perlake.
   
   Background facts
   
4. The Domain Name was registered in December 1996. In 1999 or early 2000 it was purchased by Cary Pinkowski ("Mr Pinkowski") for US$465,000. HH was registered in the Cayman Islands on 21 March 2000 to serve as a vehicle for the business of online gambling under the Domain Name ("the Business"). Darren Little ("Mr Little") and later Joe Whitney ("Mr Whitney") became investors in HH and with Mr Pinkowski they control HH.
   
5. The Business was conducted by HH on a website ("the Website") at the Domain Name address, initially operating from Antigua. The functionality of the Website was the responsibility of a software company called Cryptologic Corp.
   
6. In 2003 Messrs Pinkowski, Little and Whitney were introduced to Mr Croft. Mr Croft had expertise in online gambling, in particular from the UK.
   
7. On 29 April 2003 HH entered into a written agreement ("the 2003 Agreement") with Perlake. Upon the payment of sums specified in the 2003 Agreement, HH was to transfer the Business to Perlake together with the Website, the Domain Name, customer data and the Trade Mark. HH was to be paid consideration in the amount of US$250,000 and in addition to receive a percentage of revenue generated by the Business by way of commission. The 2003 Agreement is governed by English law.
   
8. Pending payment of the $250,000, the Domain Name and the Trade Mark were held by a firm of solicitors in Southampton acting as escrow agents. The completion of payment of that sum came in 2005 and in that year (there is an immaterial dispute about the exact date) the Domain Name and Trade Mark were assigned to Perlake.

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PDF Attached

 

[jberryhill]

And?

Might one summarize the case?

 

[johnn]

Hang on let me check with my wife.....

She said the Court has made a decision: The Lawyer is not guilty.

 

[jberryhill]

Bizarrely, one of the disputants to whatever this quarrel is about, had filed a UDRP complaint back in 2015:

https://www.adrforum.com/domaindecisions/1631539.htm

In the present case, the Panel finds that Complainant must have known and in all probability did know, that it was bringing its claim in the wrong forum because the dispute was inherently a complicated contractual dispute beyond the scope of the UDRP and it must also have known that both the terms of the Policy and the accepted practice prevented such a claim from being entertained in this forum. Accordingly, Complainant must have known that it could not prove Respondent lacked rights or legitimate interests or that Respondent had engaged in bad faith registration and use of the domain name. Moreover, the case presented by Complainant was such that it required Complainant to rely on a series of contentious allegations that could only be proved, if they could be proved at all, by evidence and argument completely beyond the limited processes available in proceedings under the Policy.