It's absolutely normal. Take a look at three member panel cases, and notice how rarely they are turned around within the specified two weeks. Three member panels routinely grant themselves extensions for getting the decision back to WIPO. It is simply the mechanics of getting three otherwise busy professionals to arrange their schedules to discuss a case, draft a decision, circulate and mark up the draft, and then return it to WIPO. They always claim "exceptional circumstances" and never state what those circumstances are. Utterly normal.
Incidentally, the fact that no decision has been communicated to the parties is not unusual either. The deadline they gave themselves is for them to send their draft decision to WIPO, and not for the decision to be sent to the parties. After the panel sends their draft decision to WIPO, it is typically proofread and formatted for notification and web publication before it is sent to the parties. Because of the current high caseload, sometimes WIPO will have the decision for quite a number of days before it is communicated to the parties. It is then put on the mailing list a day after that. If you subscribe to the WIPO decision mailing list, you'll frequently notice that in instances where the decision includes a date of the decision, then that date will have passed quite a while before the decision is published.
The extension notice is simply being misunderstood as to what the panel has said they would do by the 28th. They extended the time for them to get the decision to WIPO. The panel doesn't send the decision to the parties in a UDRP proceeding, and doesn't control the timing of that.
For example, if you look at reza.com:
https://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/decisions/pdf/2022/d2022-0945.pdf
The response due date was in April. The decision is dated June 28.
Concerning "they should have rejected the additional filing", again, it doesn't work that way. When a party files a supplement, it is forwarded to the panel. The panel will decide whether to consider it or not, but they don't make some sort of ruling on that decision in the course of the proceeding. The decision will eventually state whether they considered it or not. Most of the time, where the response has raised a substantive issue of some kind, then the panel will consider a supplement.
So, as far as the procedure is concerned, there's nothing unusual going on in this one.
In regard to the question and answer upthread about consulting with attorneys, to be clear, neither party to this dispute has ever contacted me concerning this dispute.
As far as the substance goes, this thread once again propagates a number of nonsense assumptions common in the domain community about trademarks. No, a trademark does not have to be registered to function as a mark. Unregistered marks work fine in a UDRP, provided adequate evidence of a mark is submitted. Likewise, trademarks do not need to be unique. There are multiple trademarks for lots of words, like "Delta" for an airline, faucets, tools, dental services, and a number of other things. In those sorts of circumstances, the complainant should provide some reason to believe that they were the intended target of the cybersquatting, but the mere fact of multiple concurrent TM users does not mean a UDRP cannot proceed. Put simply, everyone knows that "lambo" is a frequent and commonly used term to refer to Lamborghini. Spend a second with Google if you have any doubts about that.
A good example of this sort of thing is the nickname "McD's" for McDonalds. That was not a term they initially coined or used, but it was a term that consumers applied to the restaurant chain, and functionally it became a trademark long before McDonalds themselves started claiming it as one. The entire point of trademarks is about consumer association of a term with the origin of the goods and services. Domainers will remain hung up on irrelevant formalities, no matter how many times this sort of thing is pointed out.
On the respondent side, the case is pretty simple. It is my understanding that the respondent is a person whose surname is "Lambeth" and thus if the respondent has shown that they are commonly known by the nickname "Lambo" that should work fine, and render this to be a run of the mill case of that type. Shortened names, distinctive parts of corporate names, initials, and even nicknames have satisfied the "commonly known as" affirmative and complete defense under the Policy. (e.g. As stated in
Penguin Books Limited V. The Katz Family And Anthony Katz, WIPO Case No. D2000-0204, held, in relation to Mr. Katz' nickname of "Penguin", “
t is reasonable for someone to register a domain name based on a nickname […] and it follows that the Respondent had legitimate interests in that name.").
If, on the other hand, there has been some use of the domain name suggesting that the car company was intentionally targeted in some way, there is not an absolute right to use one's name - even if it is one's own name - for infringing purposes. For example, if your name is "Ford", you can't start a car company or use your name commercially for purposes relating to automobiles in a way that people might associate with the car company.
If this thread is any indication, then the only problem the response is likely to have is irrelevant peacock posturing over what seems to be a pretty simple case - a person named "Lambeth", whose nickname is "Lambo" registered his nickname as a domain name. That's not an unusual or remarkable situation. Likewise, it is not unusual or remarkable for Lamborghini not to be aware of those particular facts, and to proceed with a UDRP against a domain name corresponding to a nickname by which Lamborghini is commonly known among consumers. So, if those are the basic facts, then it should be a fairly simple case, but not an RDNH, provided the respondent did not shoot himself in the foot in some way through some historical misadventure.
For example, if we look at a 2017 capture of the page in question, it looked like this:
Show attachment 220294
Obviously, the PPC system believed that "Maserati", "Dodge" and the various Lamborghini links on the right side were relevant links to post, and domain registrants are normally held accountable for automated parking results even if they did not choose those links. The basic principle is that if it is your domain name, then you are responsible for what the name does.
Also, a panel could become suspicious of the registrant's motives in a "commonly known as" case where, yes, the domain name does correspond to the registrant's name or nickname, but the primary activity conducted by the registrant in relation to the domain name appears to be cashing in on the correspondence between their nickname and a well known mark.
So, the basic dynamic here is what is usually a solid defense - the respondent's apparently reasonable nickname based on his own surname - against the facts that (a) the domain name has been historically associated with automobile advertising including a direct competitor and (b) possible reasons to question the respondent's motivations, particularly if the response was as unduly combative and posturing as some of the commentary elsewhere.
It is likely, however, that the complainant did not pick up on the historical PPC targeting, which is a bonus for the defense side of the case.
