No review of Nominet iTunes decision

The High Court last week threw out an application for judicial review of a decision of Nominet’s Dispute Resolution Service.  Apple had successfully obtained the transfer of the domain name itunes.co.uk from CyberBritain Group Ltd, with the Expert finding that CyberBritain had abused its registration by using the domain name to redirect internet traffic to Napster - a direct competitor of Apple. 

The judge found the application by Benjamin Cohen, boss of CyberBritain, to be flawed in a number of respects and also criticised the failure to use Nominet’s own appeals procedure. 

An indication, perhaps, that the courts are disinclined to favour applicants seeking to overturn Nominet decisions, at least where Nominet’s own procedures have not been exhausted?

Comments

[Marcin Tustin]

I was under the impression that judicial review was not available against a domestic tribunal - instead a private law remedy such as an injunction would be the appropriate remedy.

Of course, this is based only on having read Terence Ingman's "The English legal process", rather than any expertise in the area.

[Sarah]

Although Nominet is a private limited company, in my view it is performing a public function: it is the monopoly entity for the issuing and managing of .uk domain names. TLDs and their associated domain names are valuable public resources - anyone wishing to operate in the .uk ccTLD has to apply to register its address with Nominet. Through its Disute Resolution Service, Nominet evaluates people’s rights in those domain names and determines who, if anyone, should own disputed domains regardless of the first-come, first-served nature of the .uk register.

CyberBritain relied partly on Nominet’s monopoly position in its application for judicial review, as well setting out the public sector background to the creation of Nominet.

It will be interesting to read the judge’s comments on this point – However, given the public nature of Nominet’s role, I would be surprised if its decisions were not subject to judicial review.