Komerční banka wins the komercnibanka.biz domain in arbitration

Press release

10/1/2010
8:00 AM

Komerční banka has actively joined the fight against domain name speculation. By a decision of ADR.EU, Arbitration Center for Internet Disputes, the bank has acquired the komercnibanka.biz domain. An individual registered this domain in 2008 with a view to using the domain name for damaging the company’s good reputation and for speculation.

Komerční banka filed a petition for an out-of-court settlement of the dispute over the domain name in June 2010. During arbitration, KB proved that its rights under registered trademarks, as well as good morals had been violated in the registration of the domain.

“Once we found out about the conflict-ridden situation, we tried to reach an amicable settlement. However, the holder of the domain name and operator of the komercnibanka.biz website did not respond positively to our repeated offers. The result was the referral of the case to the arbitration centre on the grounds of a violation of rights under trademarks and damage to the company’s good reputation. We took this step as the last resort; nevertheless, in the light of the speedily conducted legal dispute, this decision proved to be effective. We regard the acquisition of this domain into Komerční banka’s lawful possession as a breakthrough event, because the dispute was not over a national domain but over the so-called generic top-level domain (gTLD),” said David Šmahel from KB’s marketing communication.

The arbitrator acknowledged Komerční banka’s claims on all counts of the complaint. The arbitrator confirmed a violation of the verbal trademark “Komerční banka”, registered by the bank on 2 April 2004, as well as the non-existence of the domain name speculator’s legal claim to the registration of a domain name containing the trademark “Komerční banka”. Last but not least, the arbitrator accepted the evidence that clearly proved the intent of the then holder of the komercnibanka.biz domain name to use the domain name for speculation.

Under the decision of 27 July 2010, the komercnibanka.biz domain name was transferred to Komerční banka’s ownership and rerouted to www.kb.cz.

Komerční banka is one of the best run universal banks in Central Europe. It provides comprehensive services to clients in the areas of retail, corporate, and investment banking. The Komerční banka Group’s 8,624 employees serve 2.7 million clients, who can use an extensive network of 395 points of sale throughout the country. Komerční banka currently operates 676 ATMs and 989,000 of its clients use one of direct banking channels.

Komerční banka is part of the Société Générale Group, one of the largest banking groups in the euro zone (in terms of market capitalisation), whose 157,000 employees serve more than 32 million individual clients worldwide.