Empower.com is being sued by Great-West Life & Annuity Insurance Co. Empower.com has an interesting landing page, letting people know how they will be outbounding the domain name.
The story which was brought to light by Namepros member and Wales.org owner NickB, sources Napa-Net.org for the story.
It appears Great-West Life & Annuity Insurance has an “Empower Retirement” division. It was formed in 2014. Empower.com registered in July 1994. It is registered at GoDaddy.
Apparently they don’t like the fact that the owner of Empower.com is looking for a multi-million dollar purchase price.
Bloomberg Law says that Great-West accuses the owner of trademark violations, deceptive trade practices and unfair competition. It seeks lost profits and damages, along with injunctive relief blocking what the report says it calls “the textbook definition of cybersquatting” and “profiteering.”
Here are the court documents, a jury trial is demanded.
“ Apparently they don’t like the fact that the owner of Empower.com is looking for a multi-million dollar purchase price.”
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Thought the same until I read the lawsuit. Main issues here are wildcarding email and collecting other parties emails, then using it as a sales pitch, as well as focusing on customer confusion, talking about selling to a competitor etc.
This is going to be a very ugly case in my view as they seem to have been targeting the other party. It will not be any kind of slam dunk. They will need very strong representation to avoid losing the name.
Good point, and if this goes to an actual jury trial your point about strong representation is of the greatest importance.
Interesting. At first I thought this was just another blatant case of reverse domain name hijacking, but it’s a huge rookie mistake to basically blackmail a company into buying a name by threatening to sell to their competitor. Juries tend to look unkindly upon those strategies.
Well said!