Armand Avocats has advised the founder and manager of Usbek & Rica, owner of the “le media qui explore le futur” and all its shareholders, in the sale of their shares to the press group CZECH MEDIA INVEST France (CMI France), owned by Daniel Kretinsky.

Founded in 2010 by Jérôme Ruskin, the Usbek & Rica media consists of a quarterly magazine, a media platform with 4 million unique visitors per year, a creative studio for the future and a lab to create new formats and innovative devices.

Thierry Pariente (Partner) and Alexandre Fort from Armand Avocats intervened for the sellers.

Jean-Charles Barbaud (partner), and Wissal Elkassouani for the Redlink firm intervened for the buyer.

Armand Avocats assisted the founding partners and managers of the company LAURISTON, owner of the hotel WALDORF TROCADERO PARIS (4*) located on rue de Lauriston -75016 – Paris, in the sale of their shares to the group OSEA PARTNERS, specialist in real estate management.

Thierry Pariente (Partner) and Alexandre Fort of Armand Avocats acted for the sellers.

Laurent Viollet (LVA Associés) acted for the purchaser.

A domain name in “.fr” infringes the prior rights of the company: the Syreli procedure is an effective and fast alternative to referring to the judge.

Existing under the aegis of AFNIC (French Agency for the Internet Name Monitoring), the Syreli procedure allows anyone who considers that a domain name “is likely to infringe [its] intellectual property or personality rights” to refer to this organism by way of a request to delete or to transfer such domain name to its benefit..

The said Syreli procedure is fast:

• the holder of the disputed domain name is granted a period of 21 days from the referral to AFNIC to assert its rights,
• AFNIC rules within a maximum period of two months from the date of its referral,
• in the absence of any legal recourse, the AFNIC decision can be enforced, 15 days after its notification to the parties.

and effective:

• Upon its notification and during the whole procedure, the disputed domain name is frozen and this prohibits its transfer to any third party,
• Only 0.7% of the AFNIC decisions are subject to a legal recourse.

It should further be noted:

• the procedure is available only for domain names created or renewed as from 1 July 2011,
• there may not be any judicial or extrajudicial procedure relating to the disputed domain name pending on the date of filing of the request,
• before the AFNIC, the applicant may not claim indemnities to compensate its damages,
• the AFNIC procedural costs are currently set to €250 excluding VAT.

and as “in any thing it is necessary to consider the end”  (Jean de la Fontaine, Le renard et le bouc) :

• 66% of the procedures started with a counsel lead to a favorable decision (opposed to 33% when the applicant is not represented),
• in 74% of the cases where the holder of a domain name is represented as a defendant, he obtains a favorable decision (opposed to 46% if he has no counsel).