Relaunch of Finansovaya Gazeta: How the Domain and Trademark Issues Are Being Resolved

Ivan Eremin, founder of the FederalPress media holding, plans to resume publication of Finansovaya Gazeta. The Institute for Strategic Communications and Social Projects, established by Eremin, acquired the Finansovaya Gazeta trademark - one of the oldest media brands in Russia.

Finansovaya Gazeta was founded in 1915 and published until 1941. In 1991, the newspaper was revived, and its editorial team registered the domain fingazeta.ru. In 2012, the domain was transferred to MMG LLC. In 2024, the assets of the liquidated MMG LLC were distributed. According to a court ruling, two trademarks were identified during the process and subsequently acquired by Instratkom.

The domain fingazeta.ru was transferred to the registrar RU-CENTER in 2023 after it was not renewed by its previous administrator.

“A fairly common situation is when trademarks registered to one party (in this case, a company that has gone through bankruptcy) are sold, while the domain registered to another party (in this case, a private individual whose details are not publicly disclosed) is not. The trademark owner goes bankrupt, but the domain owner has no connection to the bankruptcy proceedings. Therefore, it is impossible to simply take the domain and include it in another party’s bankruptcy auction,” commented patent attorney Sergey Zuykov, managing partner at Zuykov and Partners.

Source: Forbes