Callum Charnock runs a UK business called LoyalSoldiers.co.uk, selling extreme sports apparel. He wanted the matching .com, LoyalSoldiers.com, which had been registered by a company called Hola Domains since 2014. On April 29, 2026, he contacted Hola Domains with a trademark infringement notice and an offer of £100. Hola Domains countered at $999. Instead of paying it, Charnock filed a UDRP complaint through WIPO two days later, on May 1, arguing the domain was registered and used in bad faith. The single-panelist filing fee alone was $1,500, already more than either number on the table during that brief negotiation. He lost the case, and the panel went further: it found he had engaged in reverse domain name hijacking, a formal finding reserved for complaints brought in bad faith.
Financial Breakdown of a Failed UDRP Claim
- Opening Offer: £100 offered by Callum Charnock to purchase LoyalSoldiers.com.
- Counteroffer: $999 demanded by Hola Domains to sell the domain.
- Filing Fee: $1,500 spent by Charnock on the WIPO single-panelist UDRP fee alone.
- Total Outcome: A complete loss of the filing fee, legal time, and a public Reverse Domain Name Hijacking (RDNH) finding.
Lay the numbers next to each other and the decision looks irrational in hindsight: a £100 opening offer, a $999 counteroffer, a $1,500 filing fee, and a loss that produced nothing but a public record of the attempt and an RDNH finding attached to his name. Charnock spent more just to file the claim than either side had proposed paying for the domain itself, before counting his own time, legal costs, or the reputational cost of an RDNH finding, which becomes part of the public panel decision and can work against a complainant in any future dispute.
The mismatch between what a domain costs to buy and what it costs to fight for is central to a frequent domain industry scenario: a buyer hits a pricing wall, then reaches for a UDRP filing as a pressure tactic to secure the asset for less. What makes Charnock’s case notable, and what most short write-ups of it skip, is how directly the panel named that pattern. According to the decision, the close timing between Hola Domains rejecting the counteroffer and Charnock filing his complaint two days later was itself read as evidence of intent: the panel concluded he used “the UDRP to increase leverage in negotiations to purchase a domain name at a discount.”
Understanding the Panel’s RDNH Finding
A straightforward UDRP loss is one thing. A reverse domain name hijacking finding is a different and more specific outcome, and it exists precisely to discourage this pattern. Under UDRP rules, a panel makes an RDNH finding when it concludes a complaint was brought primarily to harass a domain owner or wrongfully deprive them of a domain the complainant had no real trademark claim to. Charnock’s underlying trademark claim didn’t hold up either: his UK registration for the mark had expired back in October 2019, nearly seven years before he filed, and the panel noted the domain itself is made of generic dictionary words with plenty of legitimate uses beyond his specific business. Two separate problems, not one: a weak legal basis and bad-faith timing, either of which alone might have sunk the case, together enough to draw the harsher RDNH label.
An RDNH finding doesn’t come with an automatic fine (that would require a separate lawsuit, potentially under something like the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, which can carry penalties up to $100,000 in a US court, an entirely different and more expensive process than UDRP itself). But it is a documented, searchable mark against whoever filed the complaint, which matters if that person or company ever needs to bring a legitimate domain dispute later. Panels increasingly cite prior RDNH findings against the same complainant as evidence of a pattern, not a one-off.
The Case File, in the Panel’s Own Words
The dispute is recorded as WIPO Case No. D2026-1897. Charnock’s UK trademark registration, number UK00002529719, had lapsed on October 23, 2019, close to seven years before he filed the complaint on May 1, 2026, and the panel weighed that lapse directly rather than treating an expired registration as a technicality. On the timing question, the panel’s own language is worth quoting in full rather than summarizing, since a paraphrase softens exactly the part that mattered most to the outcome: “Complainant went on to initiate this UDRP proceeding right away on May 1, 2026; such close timing, however, may well be interpreted as using the UDRP to increase leverage in negotiations.” That’s a panel explicitly naming the tactic, not just declining to rule in the complainant’s favor.
This Is Part of a Rising Trend, Not a One-Off
Cases like Charnock’s are becoming more common at the same time they remain, statistically, a small share of all UDRP filings, and both things are true simultaneously. Across WIPO and its main competitor, the Forum, there were 86 RDNH findings in 2025, up from 56 in 2024, 50 in 2023, and 47 in 2022, a genuine multi-year upward trend. The number of cases where a panel even considered RDNH, whether or not it ultimately found it, rose even faster: over 200 in 2025, up from 122 the year before. At the same time, RDNH findings still show up in only around 1.2% to 1.3% of all UDRP decisions in recent quarters, meaning the overwhelming majority of UDRP cases remain exactly what the process was built for: legitimate cybersquatting disputes that end in a straightforward domain transfer.
Both numbers matter for a business weighing whether to file. The low overall rate is a reminder that RDNH isn’t a routine outcome to fear if a complaint has a real trademark basis behind it. But the multi-year upward trend, more than a 60% increase in raw RDNH findings between 2022 and 2025, suggests panels are getting both more cases that fit the “Plan B” pattern (a rejected purchase offer followed quickly by a legal filing) and more willing to name that pattern explicitly when they see it, exactly the dynamic that caught Charnock.
What This Means If You’re Ever on Either Side
For a domain owner who gets an unsolicited purchase offer followed quickly by a trademark threat, the practical lesson is that a lowball opener followed by a legal filing within days is a recognizable pattern now, not a fluke, and it’s one UDRP panels have gotten visibly better at recognizing. Charnock’s specific mistake wasn’t wanting the domain; it was going from a rejected counteroffer straight to a formal complaint in 48 hours, on the back of a trademark that had already lapsed years earlier, without what the panel’s language suggests would have been a fairly quick legal review catching either problem first.
For a business considering a UDRP claim because a domain owner won’t sell at the price they want, the more useful question isn’t “can I win this” but “do I actually have a live trademark claim, or do I just want this domain.” UDRP exists for genuine cybersquatting and bad-faith registration, not as a discount alternative to negotiating a purchase. If the honest answer is that you just want the domain and the owner won’t budge on price, paying their number, registering a reasonable alternative, or building a brand on a fresh web address registration are all cheaper and faster paths than a UDRP claim resting on a weak legal basis.
The Broader Pattern Worth Watching
Domain disputes of this nature seldom feature in standard advice about acquiring web addresses, which tends to focus on how to find and register a good domain rather than what happens when someone else already owns the one you want. But as more businesses build brand identity before securing a matching domain, the temptation to treat UDRP as a shortcut around a difficult negotiation isn’t going away, and panels are clearly paying closer attention to the timeline between a rejected offer and a filed complaint than they used to. The Charnock decision is a recent, clean example of what that shortcut actually costs when a panel isn’t persuaded: not just a lost case, but a public finding that follows the complainant into any future dispute.