affirm inc domain hijacking dla piper

Affirm, Inc. lose their attempt to hijack Affirm.com.au

Back in April, I wrote this article that outlined how Affirm Inc. (US company since 2012 with 1200 employees and generate over $600 million in annual revenue), decided that they deserved the highly generic Australian domain name Affirm.com.au for themselves, FOR NO COMPENSATION, instead of the existing owner, who had legitimately owned it for 15 years.

My domain brokerage firm DBR.com.au has been managing and representing the domain name for the last few years.

DLA Piper (Affirm Inc‘s law firm in this case) sent through a low-ball offer to purchase the domain and a letter threatening to effectively have the domain name confiscated from my client, if they didn’t accept to low-ball offer.

I publicly stated in my previous article that I phoned DLA Piper at the time and told them, “If you file an auDRP, you will lose and waste your client’s money!”

Affirm Inc. and DLA Piper chose to go ahead and file an auDRP with WIPO.

I defended the auDRP on behalf of my client.

Today, I’m happy to report that my client’s domain name is safe.

Today, I received an email from WIPO stating;

The Administrative Panel’s finding is as follows;

“the Complaint is denied and the Panel makes a finding of reverse domain name hijacking against the Complainant“. 

When is the next Assets Show?

Sign up to receive new episodes of The Assets Show in your inbox.

We don’t spam!

14 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Luke

Kudos for affirming your position Rob!

Like
12 people like this.
Ed Keay-Smith

Congrats to you and your client Rob, these thieving aholes need to be put in their place!

Unfortunately there is no financial penalty to the company or the law firm representing them.

That needs to change to help deter false claims like these ones in the future for other domain owners.

Regardless, bloody well done! 👍👏👏👏👏😎

Like
7 people like this.
Stephen

Well done Rob and good on you for exposing this.

Like
11 people like this.
Snoopy

Would definitely blame the law firm for this. Did they bill the client for this mess? Perhaps the lawyer involved can be interviewed as to what they were thinking filing this?

Like
6 people like this.
Josh

It’s just hilarious.

DLA Piper in running this have now given the world reason to infer it does not know much about domain name law or lacks expertise. This begs the question, in what other fields does the firm lack expertise?

Instead of buying the domain for $100,000 or $120,000 as might’ve been possible had the right path been taken, Affirm Inc will now need to pay $200,000 to $300,000 to acquire this domain name in my opinion.

It’s not about the money. Affirm inc could’ve bought the domain for $300,000 to begin with in my view.

The problem for this corporate is that time is slipping away and every month that passes without the domain is ultimately costing the business tens of thousands of dollars.

Sincerely hope that the owner of Affirm.com.au makes an example of this grubby behaviour and refuses to sell the domain for less than $250,000.

Should the domain sell in the future please make it public.

Like
7 people like this.
Jo

Hopefully these Complainant Reverse Domain Name Hijacking Grubs will be added here for extra exposure of their abuse of process and harassment of the legitimate Registrant who won.

DLA Piper has egg on it’s face globally from this mess their lawyers created and proffited from.

Disgraceful and Unethical for AFFIRM Inc USA and their DLA Piper lawyers.
http://www.RDNH.com
http://www.HallOfShame.com

$500,000 sell price now or tell them to get lost and build it into a competitor.

Like
5 people like this.
Troy

What a way to enter the Australian market, to sully one’s reputation straight off the bat.

Is it worth it DLA Piper? Is it worth it Affirm Inc?

This is how most corporations go about things:

Woolworths in 2011 bought Masters.com.au in “one of Australia’s largest domain name acquisitions.

https://www.coopermills.com.au/what-we-do/domain-names-law/domain-name-sales/

by paying “a fair price for the domain and was very friendly in its handling of the process, even helping Masters Medical set up its website at its new home”

https://www.applianceretailer.com.au/mfmjyfyobe/#.YMffTeQmK_Y

Woolworths Annual Report 2011 page 117 shows intangible asset additions of $5.4 million, it seems this included the domain name too.

https://www.woolworthsgroup.com.au/icms_docs/183558_Annual_Report_2011.pdf

Like
5 people like this.
Peter

I can just imagine the conversation – those Aussies wouldn’t have any idea about the value of a domain name or how to deal with a WIPO complaint and we can get this for nothing. How wrong they were!

Like
3 people like this.
Marshy

Even if the US company thought that, surely their Australian lawyers should have been educated enough to realise trying to steal the domain name would be fruitless?

Like
5 people like this.
Josh

The funniest bit is that without Affirm.com.au the business will be a dead duck in Australia.

Now they have to pay the Piper.

Like
7 people like this.
Marshy

This case is being written about on popular American domain name websites now too – https://domaingang.com/domain-law/affirm-com-au-aussie-domain-udrp-ends-up-with-a-reverse-domain-name-hijacking-finding/

Like
3 people like this.
Marshy

Yet another international article about this failure to hijack a generic domain name – https://domainnamewire.com/2021/06/11/bnpl-company-affirm-attempts-reverse-domain-hijacking/

Like
3 people like this.
Xavier

Trying to decide if I watch The Muppets or read this auDRP for the lols tonight

Like
A Domainer likes this.