The High Court has awarded an injunction to stop the agent of its previous client from using three domain names that were confusingly similar to its ex-client’s domain names. Lifestyle Management was a provider of services to UK ex-pats in Africa. Although the facts were sketchy in the brief judgment for this interim injunction, it was clear that the parties had fallen out. It seems that there was a dispute over fees payable to the agent and the agent was using three very similar domain names to the one used by Lifestyle Management in a way that was confusingly similar to the real web site.
Based on the evidence before the judge, he was satisfied that this would meet the elements of passing off as follows: the claimant had obtained a reputation in the domain name ‘offshorelsm.com’, there had been a misrepresentation by the way the domain names had been used that could lead visitors to the site into thinking that the web sites were Lifestyle Management’s, and there was damage. In addition, it was argued that the actions could amount to reverse passing off as the copy web sites had content that was potentially untrue, which would damage Lifestyle Management’s reputation and credibility.
It must be emphasised that this was an interim ruling and not a full hearing, so this does not amount to a final decision on all the facts. However, the award that the court made is of interest. The High Court ordered an interim injunction against continued use of the domain names. For now, they should merely be used to be directed to a blank web page. As to whether or not the claims had substance and the domain names would be transferred to the ex-client, that would all depend on the outcome of the parties’ full arguments at the main trial.