Most .RU, .РФ and .SU-related domain disputes are reviewed with an involvement of RU-CENTER acting, in general, as a third party which files no independent claims as to the matter in contest.
The reason for RU-CENTER, as well as any other Registrar's, participation in the domain-related litigations as a third party is that a judicial verdict to ban a domain name registrant (owner) from using in its domain name a plaintiff's trademark or any confusingly similar representation thereof provides, under the Terms and Conditions of Domain Names Registration in domains .RU and .РФ (the "Terms and Conditions"), a ground for an early disputed domain name cancellation and grants the plaintiff a preferential right to its registration.
Therefore, the Registrar submits to the court the domain ownership references, confirms or disproves the fact that a registrant is holding a domain name, can present to the court the "history" of a domain name, suspends a domain name from transferring for the duration of the proceedings and performs any other actions specified for it in the Terms and Conditions.
Recently RU-CENTER is being involved more frequently in the domain disputes as a defendant or a co-defendant.
Taking into account the fact that RU-CENTER, like any other domain name Registrar, is not a proper defendant in the cases of this kind, which fact was confirmed by the Presidium of the Supreme Arbitration Court of the Russian Federation in its Ruling of 8 December 2009 on Case No. 9833/09, the courts reject any unjustified claims lodged to RU-CENTER.
Also in all the events when RU-CENTER was unjustifiably involved in domain disputes as a defendant or as a co-defendant, as well as due to the fact that RU-CENTER has to bear legal costs, we recover from the adversary in a judicial proceeding all the legal costs suffered.
In most cases, the plaintiffs, including right holders of the globally renowned trademarks, implement voluntarily the judicial verdicts on legal cost recovery in favour of RU-CENTER and RU-CENTER does not need to resort to ruling enforcement procedures.
The court sends to the plaintiff a judicial verdict copy specifying the legal cost amount adjudged by the court. RU-CENTER banking details are available on its website www.nic.ru. It is sufficient for the plaintiff to pay the amount to RU-CENTER's account and notify on verdict execution so as to avoid in the future any enforcement procedures.
It should be noted that, in line with Article 75 of the Federal Law "Applicability of the Federal Law on Execution Proceedings", execution can be levied upon any proprietary rights owned by the debtor, including the exclusive right to the intellectual activity outcome and means of individualising, except for the cases when, in compliance with the laws in effect in the Russian Federation, these may not be subject to enforcement; right of claim under the contract of alienation or contract of using an exclusive right to the intellectual activity outcome and means of individualising; licensee-held right to using the intellectual activity outcome and means of individualising.
By implementing voluntarily the judicial verdicts on legal cost recovery in favour of RU-CENTER the plaintiffs, including right holders of the globally renowned trademarks, may be convinced that no exclusive rights owned by them will be subject to verdict enforcement on the basis of the writs of execution received by RU-CENTER in the domain disputes.
The article has been contributed by lawyers Andrei Grinkevich and Elena Gertseva
The authors' e-mail: law@nic.ru