PROCEDURE ACT OF 26th JUNE 2003
Belgian legislators decided in 2003 to tackle the fight against cybersquatting and typosquatting by passing the Procedure Act of 26th June 2003 (B.S.J. 09.09.2003).
This act applies to all .be domain names, as well as to all domain name holders who reside or have company premises in Belgium. The Act differs essentially from the scope of application of the ADR procedure. Domain names from generic domains (such as .com, .org, .net, .info, .biz) and from domains with country codes (such as .nl, .fr, .de) come under the Act, although only if the domain name holder has his/her/its place of residence or company premises in Belgium.
The procedure is submitted and dealt with as a claim as in interlocutory proceedings before the president of the court of first instance or the commercial tribunal.
For the transfer of a domain name to take place, all three of these conditions need to be demonstrated:
- The domain name is identical to, or corresponds with it in such a way that it may cause confusion with details such as a brand, geographic location or original name, trade name, an original work, name of a company or association, family name or the name of a geographic entity that belongs to someone else.
- The domain name holder had no entitlement or legitimate interest with regard to that domain name.
- The party registering the domain name acted with the intention of causing harm to a third party or obtaining unjustified benefit from so doing.
If all three of these conditions are met, the president of the court may order both the deletion and the transfer of the domain name. The recommendation is that the transfer of the domain name be ordered in view of the fact that there is a risk that after the domain name has been deleted, it is simply re-registered in bad faith by a third party.
Court cases
The following domain names are subject to a procedure based on the Act governing the unlawful registration of domain names passed on 26th June 2003. The wording of this Act can be downloaded from this website in the "Library" section.
Comparison of the ADR procedure and the Procedure act of 26th june 2003
