Cybersquatting is often defined as a situation where someone obtains the registration of a domain name belonging to someone else and the registrant has no connection with the concerned domain name. This is seen as a bad faith attempt to get money through selling the domain name to the real owners.
In Singapore, 3 Corporate Services Pte Ltd (3CS) and Grabtaxi Holdings Pte Ltd (“Grabtaxi”) reached an agreement whereby Grabtaxi agreed to pay 250.000 USD in return for the transfer of the domain name “grab.co.id”.
When Grabtaxi failed to make the agreed upon payment, 3CS filed a lawsuit before the Singapore High Court. Grabtaxi argued that the first condition of the agreement was not satisfied as 3CS was not the owner of the domain name in question which was actually registered by a third company which shared a common shareholder with 3CS.
In addition, Grabtaxi argued that since cybersquatting is contrary to public policy, the agreement should be deemed unenforceable. As a counter-argument, 3CS claimed that the Court should not enhance the scope of “public policy” so as to include cybersquatting which was not mentioned in the law explicitly.
The Court ruled that with the spread of world wide web, domain name registrant acting in blatant bad faith as cybersquatters should not be supported, therefore the agreement shoud be deemed invalid. Although this may not be seen as binding as a precedent due to the lack of any provision in the law in this regard, this decision may be referred to show that cybersquatting may be found by Singapore Courts, and maybe in other countries, as an impediment to the validity of the agreement for the transfer of the domain name[1].
[1] For detailed information, please refer to http://ipkitten.blogspot.com/2020/02/when-cybersquatting-renders-contract.html