Another day, another UDRP has been filed against an aged, valuable three letter .com domain.
According to a freshly-filed case at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) the domain EDP.com is facing a UDRP.
As the case is on-going and no decision has been delivered, we can only speculate on the motives of this case.
According to the minimal information provided, EDP – Energias de Portugal, S.A., is the Complainant.
A quick search turns up EDP.pt as the corresponding web site. The Portuguese company ranks among Europe’s major electricity operators, as well as being one of Portugal’s largest business groups.
According to Wikipedia, in December 2011, China Three Gorges Corporation acquired a 21.35% Portuguese government’s stake in EDP for €2.69 billion.
In other words, the company has plenty of cash, and now the Chinese Registrant of EDP.com will be attempting to keep its valuable domain asset.
An interesting twist to the case appears to be that the Complainant appears to have owned the domain EDP.com until September of 2014; the domain was then mysteriously transferred away from GoDaddy to the Chinese domain registrar, Ename.
Could this be the product of a domain theft? We will have to wait until the UDRP decision comes out.
Update 11/4/2016 : The domain EDP.com has been recovered via the UDRP process.
EDP – A large Portuguese company.
Update 11/4/2016 : The domain EDP.com has been recovered via the UDRP process.