How to run due diligence before buying a .br domain

How to run due diligence before buying a .br domain. UDRP and ccTLD domain recovery and defense across .br. Email the firm to assess your case.

A domain name changes hands. The price is agreed, the escrow is set, and the transfer looks clean – until the new owner discovers the name carried a prior dispute, a pending registry complaint, or a history of abusive use that now travels with the registration. In .br, where the registry operates under distinct Brazilian rules and no UDRP applies, that discovery can be expensive to unwind.

To run due diligence before buying a .br domain, a buyer must verify the chain of title through the Registro.br registry, check for any pending or concluded SACI-Adm arbitration proceedings, confirm the domain has not been flagged for cancellation, and structure the transfer using a neutral escrow that releases funds only after the registry acknowledges the registrant change. The .br zone has no UDRP and no transfer remedy equivalent to it; a tainted acquisition can leave the buyer holding a domain that a third-party brand owner can revoke through Brazilian administrative or judicial channels with no compensating award to the buyer.

This page covers the full due-diligence process: what SACI-Adm is and how it affects a transaction, the five checks every buyer should run, the escrow structure, and when counsel is required before proceeding.

Why .br due diligence is different from buying a .com

The .br registry, operated by NIC.br on behalf of CGI.br, runs entirely outside the UDRP and the Uniform Rapid Suspension system. There is no WIPO complaint path for .br, no Forum proceeding, and no CAC filing. A brand owner who believes a .br registration is abusive must use either SACI-Adm – Brazil's own administrative dispute mechanism – or the Brazilian courts.

That distinction matters directly to a buyer. Under the UDRP, a new registrant who acquired a domain in good faith after a prior dispute may still face a fresh complaint, because the Policy runs against the domain regardless of how ownership changed. In .br the exposure is shaped differently but is no less real. A buyer who acquires a domain that was previously the subject of a SACI-Adm complaint, or that a third party has already notified for cancellation, does not step into a clean slate. The administrative record follows the domain, and Brazilian courts will look at the full registration history when assessing claims by a mark owner.

We regularly advise buyers who initially treat .br as a simpler transaction than a .com purchase. In our practice, the opposite is frequently true: the relative novelty of SACI-Adm means its case history is thinner, panel outcomes are harder to predict from precedent, and the registry's eligibility rules for holding a .br add a layer of verification that does not arise with gTLDs.

What is SACI-Adm and how does it affect a .br purchase?

SACI-Adm is Brazil's administrative dispute-resolution mechanism for .br domains. It was established by NIC.br to provide an alternative to full court litigation for disputes over .br registrations. The procedure allows a trademark holder to challenge a domain registration that conflicts with its mark, and the available remedies include cancellation or transfer of the domain to the complainant.

For a buyer, the critical questions are these: Has SACI-Adm ever been invoked against this domain? Is a proceeding currently pending? And has a decision been rendered – whether or not implemented? A domain that has been ordered cancelled or transferred under SACI-Adm, but where the registry instruction was not yet executed at the time of a transaction, can create a situation where the buyer's transfer request is refused or reversed by the registry without recourse.

SACI-Adm is administered through accredited providers designated by NIC.br. Unlike the UDRP, it operates under Brazilian law, and the eligibility requirements for complainants include having rights recognized in Brazil – which in practice means a registered trademark with the INPI (Brazil's trademark office) or, in some cases, a well-known mark. The remedy of transfer requires that the complainant also meet .br eligibility rules as a prospective registrant. That eligibility check is a further item a buyer needs to confirm: if the seller barely meets the .br eligibility threshold, does the buyer qualify to hold the domain at all?

Before committing to a .br acquisition, reach out to assess whether SACI-Adm history or registry eligibility creates a deal-blocking issue. Contact info@cognomenlaw.com for an initial read.

What are the five due-diligence checks every buyer must run?

Running effective due diligence on a .br domain means working through five distinct checks before any funds move. Each check addresses a different way the acquisition can fail after closing.

First, verify current registry status at Registro.br. NIC.br's public WHOIS equivalent (RDDS) shows the current registrant, registration date, expiry date, and any administrative holds placed on the domain. A domain under a "disputado" (disputed) status flag is frozen against transfer. If that flag is present, the deal cannot close until the flag is lifted – and the buyer needs to understand why it was placed before proceeding at all.

Second, search the SACI-Adm case record. Accredited SACI-Adm providers maintain publicly accessible case databases. A thorough search should cover not only the exact domain string but also the current registrant's name, because a pattern of prior disputes filed against the same registrant across multiple .br domains is itself a risk marker. A single past complaint that was decided in the registrant's favor may be benign. A pattern of abusive registrations is not, and it raises the probability that the domain under negotiation is also targeted.

Third, check the Brazilian trademark register (INPI) for third-party claims. The key question is whether any party holds a registered mark in Brazil that is identical or confusingly similar to the domain string. An INPI search reveals not only registered marks but applications in the pipeline. A pending application from a third party – even one not yet registered – can signal an imminent SACI-Adm filing once registration is obtained.

Fourth, assess .br eligibility for the buyer. NIC.br's eligibility rules for holding a .br domain differ from the open-registration model of .com. Depending on the domain class (such as .com.br, .net.br, or others), the registrant may need to demonstrate Brazilian legal presence or registration. A buyer who cannot meet eligibility cannot hold the domain regardless of what a sales contract says.

Fifth, review the domain's use history. Historical use – the pages the domain has served, the content it has hosted, the redirects it has carried – matters for two reasons. Content that infringed a third party's rights in the past can support a retrospective SACI-Adm or court claim by that party. And content that the buyer is about to inherit on a cached or indexed basis can create reputational or legal exposure the buyer did not intend to accept.

How should escrow be structured for a .br domain sale?

A .br domain transfer requires the seller to initiate the transfer at the registry level, with NIC.br executing the registrant change. That process is not instantaneous. The gap between payment and registry confirmation is the interval during which a buyer is most exposed: funds released, but the domain not yet transferred.

A correctly structured escrow holds payment until the registry confirms the registrant change – not merely until the seller represents that the transfer has been initiated. The confirmation event should be defined in the escrow agreement as the NIC.br record reflecting the buyer as the registered holder, with no administrative flags outstanding.

The agreement should also address what happens if the transfer is refused by the registry – for example, because a SACI-Adm flag was missed in diligence, or because the buyer's eligibility was not confirmed in advance. A refund mechanism tied to a registry refusal is not a standard feature of off-the-shelf escrow services. It needs to be drafted in.

We have advised on .br acquisitions where the failure to tie escrow release to confirmed registry status meant the buyer funded a transfer that the registry rejected. The seller had already received payment. Resolution required negotiation and, in one case, Brazilian counsel to recover the purchase price as a contractual claim. That is an avoidable situation.

A domain assignment agreement for a .br transaction should also record the full chain of title – the sequence of prior owners visible from the registry's administrative history – and include representations and warranties from the seller that no SACI-Adm proceeding is pending or threatened, that the seller knows of no third-party trademark claim, and that the domain was not registered for abusive purposes. See our guidance on domain assignment agreements for the structural components that apply across zones.

If a .br acquisition is already in progress and you need the escrow terms and assignment agreement reviewed before funds move, email info@cognomenlaw.com.

What evidence decides whether a .br domain has a clean title?

Clean title in a .br domain is established by a combination of registry records, dispute-history searches, and trademark landscape analysis. No single document is sufficient on its own.

The strongest evidence of a clean title is a current Registro.br extract showing the seller as the registered holder, with no dispute flag, no administrative lock, and an expiry date confirming the domain is not lapsing at or before the transaction closes. That extract, taken as close to closing as possible, should be attached to the assignment agreement as an exhibit.

A clear SACI-Adm search certificate – an export or screenshot from the relevant provider's case database showing no cases against the domain or the registrant – is the second documentary pillar. Where the domain has been registered for a long time or has passed through multiple owners, search results against the full title history add depth.

An INPI trademark clearance search, run against the relevant classes for the domain's intended use, establishes whether a third-party registration exists that could support a future challenge. The clearance search should cover both standard character marks and figurative marks if the domain string corresponds to a recognizable name.

Wayback Machine and commercial DNS history tools document what the domain has served. Where past content is problematic – adult content, phishing pages, competitive redirects, parked pay-per-click pages monetizing a third party's brand – that history should be disclosed in the seller's representations and the buyer should factor it into price and risk allocation.

Panels in administrative proceedings and Brazilian courts have consistently given weight to registration intent and use history. A domain that was clearly registered to exploit a third-party mark, regardless of what the purchase price was, does not become legitimate simply because it changed hands. The buyer who acquires it takes on that history unless the assignment includes robust contractual protections and the buyer has conducted the clearance work to understand what it is acquiring.

How does .br compare with gTLD due diligence and other ccTLD procedures?

The right level of diligence depends on the zone and the route available to a dissatisfied third party. Comparing .br with a .com purchase and with other national procedures illustrates where the risk concentration sits.

For a .com acquisition, a UDRP complaint can be filed against a new owner by a trademark holder – and the UDRP's three-element test applies to the domain's current registration as well as its history. The filing fee at WIPO starts at USD 1,500 for a single-member panel, and a decision typically arrives within about two months. That means a .com buyer can face a dispute proceeding within weeks of a purchase, and the cost of defending it is real. Due diligence on a .com therefore focuses heavily on the three UDRP elements: does a third-party mark exist that matches the domain, does the registrant have a colorable legitimate interest, and does the use history show bad faith?

For a .uk domain, Nominet's DRS applies. The DRS test is "abusive registration" – whether the registration took unfair advantage of or was unfairly detrimental to a third party's rights. The DRS reads "registered or used" abusively, which is a lower bar than the UDRP's cumulative "registered and used in bad faith." A Nominet complaint is inexpensive and fast by comparison with litigation, so the exposure to a post-acquisition challenge is high even for names the buyer considers uncontroversial. Due diligence on a .uk acquisition accordingly weights use-history analysis heavily.

For .br, the exposure runs through SACI-Adm and the Brazilian courts. Court proceedings in Brazil can take substantially longer than an administrative dispute, and the costs – including the need for locally qualified counsel – are proportionally higher. That asymmetry means that the upfront cost of thorough pre-acquisition diligence is almost always smaller than the cost of defending a post-acquisition Brazilian court action. The calculus is straightforward.

A buyer acquiring across multiple zones – a .com and its .br counterpart, for example – needs a diligence protocol that runs UDRP risk checks on the .com simultaneously with a SACI-Adm and INPI analysis on the .br. The two analyses address different legal standards and different fact patterns. Running them in parallel avoids closing delays.

In a recent matter (a .br plus .com dual-zone acquisition, spring 2025), we identified a pending INPI trademark application that would have given a third party a viable SACI-Adm claim within months of the proposed closing date. The buyer renegotiated the price, the seller agreed to a delayed closing pending resolution of the trademark application, and the transaction completed without post-closing dispute exposure. The diligence work took less time than a post-closing SACI-Adm defense would have required.

When does a .br acquisition require counsel before proceeding?

Not every .br domain purchase requires extensive legal involvement. A domain that has been registered by the same holder for many years, with no dispute history, a clear INPI landscape, and a straightforward eligibility profile for the buyer, may need only a well-structured assignment agreement and a standard escrow. That is the cleanest scenario.

Counsel becomes essential in at least four situations. First, where the Registro.br record shows a dispute flag or an administrative hold: understanding what that flag reflects and whether it can be cleared requires knowledge of the SACI-Adm procedure and the registry's enforcement practice. Second, where the SACI-Adm history shows a prior proceeding that was decided against the current registrant but for which a transfer or cancellation instruction was apparently not implemented: the domain may be living on borrowed time, and acquiring it accelerates the exposure. Third, where the INPI search reveals a third-party mark that is clearly similar to the domain string: the viability of a SACI-Adm complaint by that trademark holder needs to be assessed before closing. Fourth, where the buyer is not certain of its own .br eligibility: acquiring a domain the buyer cannot legally hold is a fundamental transaction risk that nullifies the deal from the start.

A common misconception is that a completed purchase from a willing seller is itself evidence of legitimacy – that the transaction record proves the buyer's good faith and insulates the domain from challenge. It does not. SACI-Adm and Brazilian courts look at the registration and use history of the domain, not merely the most recent transaction. A buyer who skipped diligence and acquired a tainted domain is not protected by the price paid or by the seller's representations if those representations turn out to be false and the seller is unreachable or insolvent.

In our practice, the matters that become most difficult to resolve are those where a buyer acted quickly on a brokered deal, relied on the broker's assurance that the domain was clean, and discovered a SACI-Adm claim or an INPI conflict only after the funds had cleared. Reversing that situation requires either negotiation with the third-party claimant, a defense before SACI-Adm or a Brazilian court, or both – all at a cost that exceeds the original diligence investment by a significant margin.

Our broader guidance on domain transactions and brand-protection monitoring covers the structural elements of acquisition due diligence across zones. Where a transaction involves a respondent-side risk assessment – asking whether the domain you are buying could become a UDRP or SACI-Adm target in the near future – our analysis of reverse domain name hijacking and its global standards is also relevant to understanding the adversarial landscape a buyer may enter.

Related at COGNOMEN

• Domain transactions, due diligence, and brand-protection monitoring across zones
• Domain assignment agreements: structure and risk allocation for cross-border sales
• Reverse domain name hijacking: when to seek an RDNH finding and what it means globally