The National Telecommunications and Post Committee, the body in Greece which is responsible for the administration of .gr domain names, ordered removal of the domain name axa.gr following a dispute between AXA Insurance Company -- which owned registered trade marks for the word AXA since 185 -- and an individual who had registered the disputed domain in 2004.

The registrant argued that the domain name consisted of the first three letters of the Greek region of Achaia ( written as ‘??a?a’ in Greek letters) and that he carried on business there. This argument was rejected since AXA is pronounced ‘aksa’ while the first two syllables of the word ‘??a?a’ are pronounced ‘acha’. Nor was evidence submitted to support the contention that he did business there. The registrant said he had registered the domain name in good faith, alleging that AXA was not well known in Greece in 2004. This contention was rejected by the Committee, which considered that he should have known of the AXA mark.

Source: note by Eleni Lappa (Dr Helen Papaconstantinou, John Filias & Associates), Athens, writing in World Trademark Report].