Working in conjunction with the Belgian Centre for Arbitration and Mediation, known as CEPINA (www.cepina.be), DNS Belgium has developed an Alternative Dispute Resolution procedure (ADR) to deal with disputes relating to .be domain names. This procedure runs quite quickly (average of 55 days) and is carried out entirely in writing. It also involves relatively low costs.
The procedure is set out in detail in article 10 of Terms and Conditions for .be registrations. A summary of the procedure follows. If the summary should conflict with what is contained in article 10, the Terms and Conditions will apply.
Any party with an interest can lodge an application for the alternative dispute resolution with CEPINA to settle a dispute about a .be domain name. The dispute is assessed by an independent Third-Party Decision-Maker, who is a legal expert in the matter. The Third-Party Decider may decide to delete the domain name or to transfer the name to the complainant. Under normal circumstances, the registrant is able to reply once in writing to the complainant's arguments.
A complaint from a third party against a .be registrant will be taken up by CEPINA on condition that the complaint is lodged in accordance with standard conditions and after depositing the procedural costs of € 1,750 into CEPINA's account.
In order to obtain the transfer of the domain name, all three of these conditions must be demonstrated:
The application to transfer the domain name in question must, of course, be expressly included in the complaint.
You can find details of the official procedure at the CEPINA website.
(In this case, "days" means "calendar days")
In some cases some of these periods can be extended.
The fee charged for the procedure is € 1,750, which is paid by the complainant at the beginning of the procedure. If the Third-Party Decider rules that the complaint is justified, DNS Belgium will refund the total of the costs to the complainant. DNS Belgium will then claim this amount back from the previous, unlawful registrant.
Regardless of the option to submit the dispute to an ordinary court, all parties have the right to lodge an appeal with CEPINA within 15 days of the ruling handed down by the Third-Party Decider. The appeal term counts as an expiry term, which means that when the term has gone by, no appeal can be lodged any more against the Cepina ruling.
The application for appeal must be lodged with CEPINA in accordance with the standard requirements mentioned above and payment of € 4,050.00.
The defending party then has a period of 7 days to respond to the arguments submitted by the other party.
After this, an Appeal Panel of three Third-Party Deciders will be appointed by CEPINA. This panel must take a decision within 30 calendar days of the case being submitted to it. Rulings by the Appeal Panel cannot be appealed any higher.
The domain names subject to the ADR procedure with CEPINA can be found here.
An overview of all cases can also be found on the CEPINA website.
