ITG Brands, owners of the popular Blu eCig have acquired the 3 letter brand matching domain name BLU.com
This domain name transaction is a little bit more interesting to me, as I have followed this domain name for a pretty long time and reported when Blu.com was suspended due to ownership verification back in July 2015.
The reason for the suspension back in July, based on information from a past IT employee from Denver Investments, is because Dennis Obduskey tried to take ownership “back” after offering to allow Denver Investments to use the domain name after he was the original registrant of the domain name.
Dennis was let go from Denver Investments in early 2015 after a 30+ year career for the company.
In speaking with Dennis many times, he simply felt that he owned the domain name because he was the original registrant of it, with his own money and registered it at home. Since it was back in the early 90’s and the company he was employed by wanted to get “online” around that time, Dennis claimed to be helpful and let the company use a domain name he already owned. Blu.com was then used for the Blue Chip Value Fund.
From that time on, Denver Investments name was in whois records (Dennis was the IT guy and set up the whois via NSI) and Denver Investments also paid the annual renewal fees for the domain.
When Dennis was released from the company in early 2015, he transferred the domain name Blu.com back to his ownership from advice from his lawyer but was then later forced to transfer ownership back to Denver Investments when they claimed ownership.
Dennis and a higher up at Denver Investments both felt that Dennis was owed something for the domain name, yet all Dennis ended up with was a legal bill.
Now the new development of Blu.com selling to ITG Brands.
There are several things in this story, like the fact that Blue Chip Value Fund was dissolved and all assets were to be transferred to “Westcore”… yet the domain name never was and held the Blue Chip Value Fund name in whois records. Clearly this was an asset, but one that appears to have been swept under the rug?
Now that a potential six figures has changed hands for the domain name Blu.com, is the original registrant of the domain name going to get some compensation for the domain name he claims was his?
Wow, this is an interesting story and an interesting domain sell. It’s hard legally because he let them put their name in the who is records to begin with. That was probably a bad idea. He definitely should have had a signed contract between himself and the company from the beginning stating that although he allowed them to put their name in the who is that he still owned the name, if anything ever happened.
I agree Jason. The contract would have been the wise move at the time, but sadly Dennis didn’t think of it back then. I’d still fight it with a good domain lawyer, just because!
Twisted knot of a back story.