What is EuroDNS’s response to the notice?
EuroDNS is a respected member of the Icann community and has always scrupulously abided by Icann policies. This case is no exception as, contrary to what the letter implies, the implementation of the ruling was initiated the next day of our receipt of the WIPO email. We do not want to breach and obviously have no interest in blocking a rightful transfer nor impede a WIPO decision.
Now, where it gets complicated – and what ICANN surprisingly does not mention in their letter – is that, on the same day, both we and the complainant of the UDRP were served a summons to appear in front of the Luxembourg civil court. The court papers said that the respondent to the UDRP was not the legitimate holder of the domain name and asked for a local judge to prevent us from transferring the domain name to anyone. This case is still pending. We are therefore in an incredible position where if we transfer the name before the judge’s ruling we will be accountable in our own country and if we don’t transfer the name we are in breach of the Registrars Accreditation Agreement (RAA).
We have informed Icann, WIPO and the complainant of these facts and Icann specifically told us in an email dated March 31 they would ‘have the document translated and reviewed for compliance with priority’ and get back to us. The public letter published last night is the first time we heard back from ICANN and as you can see no reference is made to the court papers which they did acknowledge receiving… Maybe for lack of a translator ?
Why did EuroDNS fail to transfer the domain?
Only for the reasons above. The complainant’s counsel was even sent the Authcode for the proper transfer, as soon as we could handle the WIPO decision. The sole reason why the transfer has not taken place yet is to allow for the civil court’s judge to render their ruling. Indeed the lawsuit did not come from the respondent per se, but considering it came from someone alleging fraud and impersonation, as well asking a judge to prevent us from doing so, it is quite difficult to make a decision.
Does EuroDNS plan to cure the breech?
The easy thing to do would be to abide by the UDRP and we are obviously prepared to do so as we always were. However, the question remains: should we simply ignore a court case – that could prevent us from doing the transfer which is what the judge asked – because of our RAA’s obligations? We would gladly do so, but Icann needs to make their choice crystal clear, after having read all the relevant documents.
