Un aperçu sur dix ans d'activité du Centre belge d'arbitrage et de médiation, chargé d'arbitrer les litiges concernant les noms de domaine. ©Electre 2025

Les noms de domaine .be / .be domeinnamen

10 ans d'existence du règlement pour la résoltion des litiges en la matière

10 jaar bestaan van het reglement ter beslechting van de geschillen in deze materie

CEPANI, the Belgian Centre for Médiation and Arbitration, is proud that it has been, from the very beginning, the accredited Dispute Resolution Entity for the « be » domain name disputes. Aided by a working group of experts and DNS.be, CEPANI set up the Rules that govern the proceedings to solve domain name disputes. CEPANI has selected a number of panelists, also called third-party deciders, who are experts in intellectual property law and who are called upon to resolve the domain name disputes. Their decisions in English, French or Dutch constitute a.o. the case law of the « .be » domain name disputes.

A novelty for 2013 is the notice about the légal costs that CEPANI may send out to the registrant when a domain name complaint is filed. To reduce the cases of cybersquatting, DNS.be provides in its terms and conditions that if the third party decider orders in a dispute that a domain name must be transferred to the complainant or must be cancelled, the costs of the proceedings will have to be reimbursed by the domain name holder. To create full transparency in this regard, CEPANI will inform the domain name owner in the earliest stage of the proceedings of the risk of reimbursement of the costs in case a decision is rendered in favor of the complainant.

After over 10 years of dispute resolution regarding « .be » domain names, CEPANI considered that the time had come to reflect about what has been and what has yet to come. In close co-operation with DNS.be CEPANI asked a few eminent authors to share their experience and their ideas, and is proud to publish their contributions in this book.

With this book came the CEPANI domain name seminar held on the 12th of December2012 at the premises of CEPANI in Brussels. The book's contributions were the subject of lively discussions and we trust that this way the foundations for dispute resolution in the « .be » domain will be made even more solid for another 10 years.