U.S. Court Hits Paris With Reverse Domain Name Hijacking

Back in 2009, the city of Paris, France filed a UDRP complaint (Ville de Paris v. Jeff Walter; D2009-1278) against the parvi.org domain owner.

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) panel determined that the domain was not registered with bad faith intent. Nevertheless, they decided to hand over the domain to the city of Paris.

But then domain owner Jeffrey Walter of Fremont, California decided to contest the ruling and filed suit in the U.S. District Court in Texas.

The case was filed and argued in Texas because Paris had agreed the WIPO UDRP complaint would be resolved in the same jurisdiction as the domain name registrar.

Now the federal judge had to choose between implying that Jeff Walter was guilty of cybersquatting or hitting Paris with a charge of reverse domain name hijacking.

Paris did not attend the hearings or send a legal representative, so the judgment was awarded to the plaintiff by default. The U.S. District Court judge decided that Walter gets to keep the domain.

The icing on the cake is that the judge ordered the city of Paris to pay $100,000 to the plaintiff as damages for the reverse domain name hijacking attempt. This $100,000 is in addition to plaintiff’s legal expenses amounting to more than $26,800.

The question now is whether Paris will pay the judgment amount or tell the domain owner and the U.S. court system to take a hike. Since they did not take part in the court proceedings, it is safe to assume that Paris has no intention of honoring its verdict.

The only way the court can help the plaintiff collect the award amount is by placing a lien on any assets the city of Paris may have within jurisdiction of the United States federal government.

That would quickly ramp up the matter into an international scandal and cause all kinds of problems for the U.S. Department of State. At this point, it’s safe to say that the owner of Parvi.org may never get to see that $100,000 award.