News Release

March 10, 2000

Mumbai High Court rejects application against ICICI regarding domain name registration

In a landmark judgement in the cyber world, a one judge bench presided by Hon'ble Justice D.K. Deshmukh of the Mumbai High Court today rejected the application filed by Investsmart India Limited, a subsidiary of IL&FS Limited, against ICICI Limited (NYSE: IC and IC.D), the premier financial institution in India.

According to Mr Virendra Trivedi, the counsel appearing on behalf of ICICI, "an application made by the Plaintiffs above-named for an ad-interim injunction order inter-alia restraining ICICI from operating any business and/or selling or offering for sale or advertising or in any manner dealing in any services or

goods on the Internet or otherwise or from in any manner using in relation to the Internet or otherwise, the word/mark/domain name "WWW.INVESTMARTINDIA.COM" or any word/mark/domain name which is identical with or deceptively similar to or a colourable imitation of, the Plaintiffs' mark and/or registered domain name

"WWW.INVESTSMARTINDIA.COM" was rejected by His Lordship the Hon'ble Mr. Justice D.K. Deshmukh today".

Mr. Trivedi said that while rejecting the said application the Hon'ble Court considered the following submissions made on behalf of ICICI:

a) That the application filed by Investsmart India Ltd does not make out any prima facie case against ICICI Ltd and that there already existed a prior registrant in the name of "WWW.INVESTSMART.COM" owned by a third party prior in time.

b) That since the domain name of the plaintiffs, "WWW.INVESTSMARTINDIA.COM" was purely descriptive in nature and not distinctive (such as "WWW.REDIFF.COM", "WWW.YAHOO.COM", etc.), it would in fact hurt the public at large if a single party was given an unfair monopoly over the use of the words "invest", "mart", and "India".

c) That 89 examples of international precedents wherein similar sounding domain names are simultaneously existing and are owned by different parties.

The judge passed a detailed order in the matter, which will be made available in a few days.

For further queries: Contact Mr. A.P. Singh on +91-22-6536262 or email to singhap@icici.com