By Steve Levy
Under the UDRP a complainant typically only gets one shot at recovering a domain name. While it’s true that refiling a complaint against the same Respondent is only possible under exceptional circumstances, this rule doesn’t apply when the domain name has been sold to an unrelated new owner. A recent WIPO decision involving sunbet.com is a textbook example of how a second UDRP case can succeed even after the first one failed, provided that the domain name is used in bad faith by the new owner.
Back in 2014, Sun International, owner of the SUNBET and SUN CITY marks for hotels, casinos, and resorts, filed its first complaint against the sunbet.com domain name. The panel in that case denied the complaint because the respondent’s ownership of the domain pre-dated Sun International’s trademark rights. In other words, the respondent could not have registered the domain name in bad faith because the complainant’s SUNBET mark did not yet exist at that time. The panel described it as “inconceivable” that the respondent could have targeted a trademark that had not yet been launched.
Fast-forward to 2026, and the situation looked very different. Sun International discovered that the domain name had changed hands. Updated Whois data suggested that a new registrant acquired the domain in 2022 which is long after the SUNBET mark had become well-established. Most importantly, the domain name now redirected users to a Chinese-language gambling site that explicitly invoked both the SUNBET and SUN CITY marks, even describing itself as the “latest official website.” That kind of conduct leaves little doubt about bad faith targeting.
The panel in the 2026 case emphasized that a refiled complaint is only admissible when based on a “sufficiently new factual matrix.” Here, the change in registrant and the new, unmistakably infringing use of the domain name met that threshold. The panel made clear that it was not revisiting the earlier decision but rather, it was evaluating a new respondent’s conduct under new facts. With Sun International’s trademark rights long established by the time of the 2022 acquisition, and with the domain name now being used to impersonate the company, the panel had no difficulty finding both bad-faith registration and bad-faith use.
The sunbet.com decisions illustrate an important principle. A failed UDRP complaint does not permanently immunize a domain name from future action. When ownership changes and the new holder engages in clear bad faith targeting, a second complaint can be filed. The UDRP is designed to address ongoing abusive conduct, and when the facts evolve, so can the outcome. For this reason, brand owners are advised to remain vigilant and to calendar follow-up observations of domain names that they may have initially decided are not suitable for action under the UDRP.