bansk group launches lawsuit over 'banks' misspelling,decides to withdraw it

The domain owner registered the domain before the private equity company was established.

A private equity group specializing in consumer packaging has withdrawn its lawsuit against the owner of bansk.com.

Bansk Group was founded in 2019. The owner, SiteTools, has held bansk.com since 2013, monetizing it by redirecting to websites offering financial products due to it being a misspelling of banks.com.

As the preferred domain name for Bansk Group was already taken, they settled for the domain name BanskGroup.com.

Last year, Bansk Group approached SiteTools to purchase the domain. They offered $10,000, but SiteTools rejected the offer, claiming it was much higher than the appraised value of bansk.com, citing appraisals from Estibot and GoDaddy.

When Bansk Group threatened legal action, SiteTools preemptively filed a lawsuit in November 2022. The case was later dismissed due to lack of personal jurisdiction.

Last month, Bansk Group took proactive measures and filed its own lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in New York. They alleged that SiteTools engaged in malicious domain squatting, targeting their brand.

Despite SiteTools clearly registering the domain as a misspelling of the financial word "banks," Bansk Group raised a dispute:

SiteTools redirected the bansk.com domain to its domain, diverting consumers from Bansk's online locations to a site accessible under the bansk.com domain. This could potentially harm the goodwill represented by the Bansk mark, either for commercial gain or with the intent to tarnish or disparage the Bansk mark by creating a likelihood of confusion regarding the source, sponsorship, affiliation, or endorsement of the site(s) accessible under the bansk.com domain.

It is unclear why Bansk believed it had the right to own a domain registered many years before its establishment, but they argued that SiteTools "registered" the domain when renewing it.

On Wednesday, Bansk Group submitted a notice of voluntary dismissal with prejudice, indicating a decision to withdraw the lawsuit without the possibility of further legal action.