The Complainant was the owner of the trade mark THE CO-OPERATORS, registered in 1994 and recognized by the Panel as very well known in Canada for its insurance services.

The Registrant registered the disputed domain name cooperator.ca on July 15, 2005. The Registrant used the disputed domain name as a landing page with multiple hyperlinks.

Under the CIRA Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy ("CDRP"), a successful Complainant must establish that the disputed domain name is confusingly similar with a mark in which it had rights, that the name was registered in bad faith and that the Registrant does not have a legitimate interest in the domain name.

The Panel held that the domain name cooperator.ca was confusingly similar to the Complainant's registered mark as only in incidental ways were they different. Additionally, by placing hyperlinks to insurance services, the manner in which the domain name was used created confusing similarity as per paragraph 3.4 of the Policy.

On the issue of bad faith, the Panel held the registration was an attempt to take a free ride on the Complainant's good will and deny the Complainant access to the disputed domain name. The Panel also took note of the Registrant's pattern of registering domain names corresponding to trade marks of third parties. The Registrant failed to respond to the evidence showing its bad faith and the Panel held that the domain was registered in bad faith.

Finally, the Registrant failed to show that its use of the domain name complied with any of the legitimate interests set out in paragraph 3.6 of the Policy.