ICANNWatch | WIPO Overrules French Court

WIPO Overrules French Court
posted by michael on Wednesday March 10 2004, @07:29AM

cedric writes "A recent WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center administrative decision seems to violate French civil procedure.

The panel ordered the transfer of the domain name. This transfer had previously been prohibited by a French court, according to the administrative decision (point n° 4): "[o]n February 5, 2001, the French "Tribunal de Grande Instance" of Strasbourg, forbade the transfer of the disputed domain name by the S.A.R.L. Neurocim".

Under French Law, a judgment which is not susceptible to any review which would suspend execution has the force of res judicata (see article 500 of the French Code of Civil Procedure, in English)."

"If the French decision has not been subject to appeal, it binds the parties, and have effect vis-à-vis third parties. Being a third party, the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center should also have respected the French judicial order..."

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Lousy Headline
by michael (froomkin@lawUNSPAM.tm) on Wednesday March 10 2004, @04:32PM (#13165)
User #4 Info | http://www.discourse.net/

A correspondent writes:

As a result of an action brought by plaintiff, a court rules that A may not use or transfer the name. Apparently in violation of the order, A transfers to B. So the panel gives the name to plaintiff. So your correspondent says that the panel has not honored the order of the French court.
You cannot honor an order that has already been broken. I think the headline "WIPO overrules French Court" is a bit of a mischaracterization.

As I wrote the headline (Cedric's was much too long), I should both take the blame, and say that I think this is a fair point...although it's unclear to me whether the fact that one party breaks an order means the order is thus rendered inoperative from then on. That would, I think, in this case be a question of French law.

[ Reply to This | Parent ]

Re:Lousy Headline by cedric.manara@edhec. Thursday March 11 2004, @05:37AM

Boundaries and inclusion
by hugh on Thursday March 11 2004, @04:21AM (#13168)
User #3957 Info

I intentionally use the term boundaries here so as not to sound like a lawyer. But I do mean it in the sense of Jurisdiction. Absent some type of seperate agreement - treaty. Generally speaking a court will only have jurisdiction over the things (res) or persons (persona) which are before it (within it's jurisdiction) Here it would appear that the French court has jurisdiction over a name (arguably the res) and the persons within France. If the name is a right in a process that is performed outside of France, well one can see that this is a problem. If Jurisdiction can be conferred through a contract for services (extrajudiciary) i.e. arbitration clauses, well then a whole other set of standards apply and restrict jurisdiction for a purpose. No there most certainly is no overturning or overruling here - but it was a catchy headline.

[ Reply to This | Parent ]

Re:i'm firmly with amadeu on that immediate goal
by fnord (groy2kNO@SPAMyahoo.com) on Wednesday March 10 2004, @06:39PM (#13166)
User #2810 Info

Is there any chance of you just providing a link to this instead of copying and pasting it in a misformatted format that gives me a headache? Despite my spidey senses tingling, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that once I can process it cogently it won't still give me a headache. -g

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