The domains were awarded by the court after Bodog failed to pay the $48M judgement. The plaintif is seeking relief by going after all Bodog assets that they can get at. The courts dont appreciate it when a company thumbs their nose at a decision and ignores judgements. I am sure as discovery and asset searches uncover additional assets that can be seized those will be turned over to the plaintif as well.
There is an EXCELLENT series of articles writen by Jetset out lining whats actually going on over at Casinomeister:
please read the entire series, but let me paraphrase some of the latest points:
It is alleged that Bodog failed to appear in court to defend itself and lost the case by default, and Judge Hunt issued an order that Bodog was to pay $48 937 456 to 1st Technology by March 2007 for patent infringement.
When the order had not been complied with on the due date, it appears that the case was transferred as an enforcement issue to the state of Washington sometime in June, but Bodog again failed to make an appearance, according to 1st Technology’s attorney Venkat Balasubramani.
The lawyer is adamant that all appropriate notifications were correctly given for both the lawsuit in Nevada and the subsequent action in Washington state. “I can’t speculate as to why they might have done that [failed to appear]. It’s safe to assume they knew about it and definitely ignored it,” Balasubramani added.
1st Technology was left with no alternative but to note that Bodog had failed to respond to the default judgment and ask that all Bodog domains be confiscated and transferred to them. This was so ordered by Judge John Erlick on August 21, requiring registrars to transfer Bodog related domains to the control of 1st Technology.
“The Court makes it clear that the intent of this order is to allow the Plaintiff to liquidate or otherwise monetize the Domain Names without incurring any expense,” said Judge Erlick in his ruling. “Plaintiff may decide not to auction the domain names, and instead may operate the Domain Names in any manner it sees fit, including exploiting any traffic to the sites accessible via the domain names.”
Balasubramani, who is expert in commercial litigation involving the Internet and technology explained that the purpose behind the order was to satisfy as far as possible the apparently ignored 1st Technology judgment.
It is becoming clear that a great deal of preparation and planning by a competent legal team has gone into the action against Bodog. Balasubramani says that 1st Technology LLC has engaged a considerable multi-legal team that is now dedicated to enforcing its judgement against Bodog, embracing commercial and intellectual property rights. It intends to demonstrate that no company that has customers in the United States is above or beyond U.S. legal jurisdiction, he said