WIPO DEU2024-0004 · decided 4 April 2024
Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena S.p.A. v. Domain Manager, Evolution Media e.U.
The parties
- Complainant
- Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena S.p.A.
- Respondent
- Domain Manager, Evolution Media e.U.
What did the panel find on each element?
| Element | Finding |
|---|---|
| Identical or confusingly similar to a protected name | The panel found mps.eu identical to the MPS trademark, including International registration 824744 of April 14, 2004, which designates over 40 countries including Austria. |
| Registered without rights or legitimate interest | The panel found the bank had not proved a lack of legitimate interest, because Evolution Media e.U. trades in domain names and registered mps.eu as part of that business. |
| Or registered or used in bad faith | The panel found mps.eu was neither registered nor used in bad faith, because there was no evidence, or basis to infer, that the domain trader targeted the MPS trademark. |
Why does Monte dei Paschi matter for a complaint today?
Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena S.p.A. is a bank based in Siena, Italy, that traces its history to 1472 and offers online banking at mps.it. Evolution Media e.U., an Austrian domain trader, registered mps.eu on July 11, 2019 and parked it on pages saying it was for sale. The bank owned the identical MPS trademark, so it passed the first element. It lost on the second and third. The panel, Steven A. Maier, accepted that the letters M, P and S could refer to many businesses other than the bank. The panel saw no evidence that the trader knew of the MPS trademark when it registered the domain, and no basis to infer it. Buying short domains to resell them was a legitimate business here. For a business owner, the lesson is about acronyms. The .eu test lets you win on either a missing legitimate interest or bad faith, which is easier than the UDRP's need for both. You still have to win one of them. If your trademark is three letters that other businesses also use, you need evidence that the holder was aiming at you. An identical domain and a for-sale page were not enough here.
Who decided the case?
A single panelist, Steven A. Maier, decided the case on 4 April 2024.
Read the decision
The full text is published by the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center. We summarise it here; the decision itself is the authority.
Summarised by Gergana Dimitrova. Checked against the published decision on 23 October 2026.
Someone has taken a domain that uses your brand?
The first assessment is free and comes back within 24 hours. If the case is weak we say so rather than take the fee.