What Nominet already knew about the business.co.uk domain name.
On the 7th June 2006, I requested a Transfer Form from Nominet UK for the business.co.uk domain name. This was then completed by myself and a Director of the registrant company listed in Nominet's Whois, and returned by me to Nominet by Friday 11th August 2006. By Monday 14th August, the transfer was halted, shortly followed by an imposed investigation, initially up until 20th November 2006. Nominet UK later described this process as "...a fair and transparent investigation..." into this domain name. The extracted information shown below, which stemmed back more than two years prior to my involvement, is what Nominet already knew, including the details of a claim for the business.co.uk domain name. Nominet only revealed this to me after 20th November 2006. (Claimants identities have been altered by myself, identified thus **).
3.1 On 28 May 2004 Nominet sent a letter to the listed registrant advising them that the Domain Name was a pre-Nominet registration that needed to be regularised. We asked the registrant to agree to our terms and conditions for domain name registration.
3.2 On 19 July 2005 an email was sent to Nominet by a third party who had noticed that the registrant name for the Domain Name was listed on our WHOIS as Interactive Telephony Ltd trading as **'1997UK' Limited. The third party correctly understood that one limited company could not trade as another limited company. We responded to this enquiry confirming that we agreed that one limited company cannot trade as another and that 1997UK Limited appeared to have added in their name to the trading as field of the register. We agreed to contact 1997UK Limited to ask them to arrange for the registrant's name to be displayed correctly on the register. At this point the Domain Name's website pointed to 1997uk.co.uk.
3.3 On 19 July 2005 we sent an email to the listed registrant's email contact asking for the registrant's pre-Nominet registrant declaration to be returned to us. We advised in this email that we considered Interactive Telephony Ltd (Jersey registered 55329, now known as PSINet Jersey Limited) to be the registrant.
The above is a clear statement of not only who Nominet considered to be the registrant, but also that Nominet had investigated further regarding the limited company name in their Whois, and they had correctly discovered by July 2005 that it was a Jersey based company who had since changed their trading name to PSINet Jersey Limited in April 1998.
3.4 On 19 July 2005 we received a reply from **'Mr Parent Head of Marketing', Head of Marketing Communications Department at the **'Parent Empire' plc 1997UK Centre confirming that they wanted to keep the Domain Name and provided us with a contact at 1997UK -**'1997UK Assistant Marketing Manager'.
3.5 On 19 July 2005 we sent an email to 1997UK Assistant Marketing Manager asking him to arrange for the registrant of the Domain Name to complete the pre-Nominet registrant declaration.
3.6 On 20 July 2005 1997UK Assistant Marketing Manager emailed Nominet to ask us to resend the pre-Nominet registrant letter with the PIN code that was required for accessing the online registration system.
3.7 On 20 July 2005 we resent the pre-Nominet registration letter to the listed registrant advising them that the Domain Name was a pre-Nominet registration that needed to be regularised. We asked the registrant to agree to our terms and conditions for domain name registration.
3.8 On 22 July 2005 we received a completed pre-Nominet registrant declaration from 1997UK Assistant Marketing Manager. This declaration confirmed that 1997UK Limited was the registrant of the Domain Name.
What Nominet are therefore saying in 3.7 & 3.8 is that they sent a letter to PSINet Jersey Limited, and that it was returned to them within just 2 days via the 1997UK Assistant Marketing Manager. The reader will read later how there in no logic to this route or timescale.
3.9 On 22 July 2005 we contacted 1997UK Assistant Marketing Manager to advise that we could not link 1997UK Limited to the original application for the domain name and so either needed clear contemporary evidence that demonstrated how the Domain Name had been transferred to them or needed them to complete our normal registrant transfer process.
3.10 On 28 July 2005 we were asked to issue a registrant transfer form.
Presumably this was issued to 1997UK Limited. Note that 3.9 and 3.10 took place in July 2005, over one year before receipt of my valid transfer form by Nominet.
3.11 On 5 August 2005 we spoke with Mr Parent Head of Marketing of 1997UK and advised him why we needed additional information that proved that 1997UK Limited was the registrant of the Domain Name.
Point 3.11 above wrongly connects this employee to 1997UK. However, it does confirm that Nominet is in contact with the parent organisation to request such information.
3.12 On 12 August 2005 we spoke to 1997UK Assistant Marketing Manager of 1997UK who advised us that he would speak to his legal advisers and get the necessary evidence over to us.
3.13 On 18 November 2005 Nominet sent a third letter to the listed registrant advising them that the Domain Name was a pre-Nominet registration that needed to be regularised. We asked the registrant to agree to our terms and conditions for domain name registration.
3.14 On 7 February 2006 we attempted to contact the registrant of the Domain Name by sending an email to various generic email addresses (postmaster@business.co.uk, hostmaster@business.co.uk, info@business.co.uk etc) and cc'd this email to the registration agent that was hosting the domain name (1997UK). We advised that we now needed the registrant to sign up to our terms and conditions within the next seven days. We advised that the Domain Name would be suspended pending cancellation at a later date if the registrant did not come forward and sign up.
3.15 On 9 February 2006 **Mr Lawyer 1' of **'Law Firm acting for 1997UK & Parent Empire' contacted us to confirm that it was his understanding that 1997UK Limited were the registrant of the Domain Name. He agreed to provide the necessary evidence to us.
3.16 On 22 February 2006 we called Mr Lawyer 1 to request that the evidence that he had referred to be sent over to us.
3.17 On 31 March 2006 we tried to call Mr Lawyer 1 but he was unavailable.
3.18 On 31 March 2006 a colleague of Mr Lawyer 1 (**Miss Lawyer Assistant) called us and we briefed her on the situation. She agreed to get someone from Law Firm acting for 1997UK & Parent Empire to ring us about the case.
3.19 On 4 April 2006 we were asked to issue a registrant transfer form to **'Mrs Lawyer 2' at Law Firm acting for 1997UK & Parent Empire.
Why did Nominet issue a registrant transfer form, according to 3.16, Nominet were waiting for evidence to be sent to them?
3.20 On 24 April 2006 Mr Lawyer 1 called us to confirm that his client was in the process of completing the necessary registrant transfer form.
3.21 On 17 May 2006 we spoke with Mr Lawyer 1 who confirmed that there was no one who could sign on behalf of the original registrant and that he was therefore happy for us to suspend and cancel the Domain Name. His client will try to re-register the Domain Name once it is cancelled. We advised that we operate a first registered, first served registration process and so could not guarantee who would re-register the Domain Name once it was cancelled.
Lawyer 1 confirmed that there was no one to sign a registrant transfer form. This is an interesting confirmation by Nominet.
3.22 On 18 May 2006 we suspended the Domain Name.