You need good representation at the WIPO.
Mediaset SpA is Italy’s largest media corporation, owning several television channels. It uses Mediaset.it as the primary web site for providing its Internet-related content.
The domain name Mediaset.com was contested in 2008 at the WIPO, and the sole panelist decided that it was used “in bad faith” by its registrant, who registered it in 2002. Mediaset.com was thus turned over to the Italian department of Mediaset SpA.
All went well until mid-2011, when the domain Mediaset.com was not renewed!
Top WHOIS tool, DomainTools shows that the Moniker-held domain went into an auction at SnapNames.
The winner of the auction, Fenicius LLC, and its owner, Didier Madiba, intended to use the domain to sell “media sets” and “backup media of complete operating systems.”
That did not stop Mediaset SpA from filing yet another UDRP at the WIPO in early 2012, in order to reclaim the domain name!
Unfortunately for the Italian media giant – who had not been using the domain Mediaspa.com – their demand was denied by the three members of the panel. The Respondent’s attorney was Ari Goldberger of ESQwire.com
The scandal of losing the domain name made big waves in Italy, to the point where some media blaming former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, controlling shareholder of Mediaset, for this remarkable failure to protect his own corporation’s assets.
Meanwhile, a civil case is still open in a Roman court against the domain owner, Didier Madiba, who has been diagnosed with cancer in the interim.
