Another victory against ICANN in internet governance arbitration
Altanovo (f/k/a Afilias) demonstrated that ICANN sided unfairly and discriminatorily in favor of Verisign when ICANN decided to award .WEB, the domain best positioned to compete against .COM, to a competing bidder.
Following an ICANN-administered auction for the .WEB top-level domain, it emerged that the winner had sold its application for .WEB to Verisign prior to the auction, thereby allowing Verisign – the internet domain space’s dominant player – to secretly participate in the bidding. On Afilias’ behalf, Dechert commenced arbitration against the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the internet’s de facto regulator, before the International Centre for Dispute Resolution (ICDR), asserting that ICANN had failed to take action against the bidder and Verisign, despite being aware of their subterfuge and violation of ICANN’s rules, policies and procedures. “Most Innovative Legal Practitioner,” Arif Hyder Ali Financial Times – Innovative Lawyers North America Awards 2021 In May 2021, an international arbitration panel agreed, determining unanimously that ICANN had failed to act fairly, objectively and transparently, and directing ICANN’s board to conduct an objective review of Afilias’ complaints to determine the consequences of any illegal violations that occurred. The victory is Dechert international arbitration group co-chair Arif Ali’s fourth consecutive win against ICANN. The earlier arbitrations prompted far-reaching changes to ICANN’s accountability framework and established the important precedent that international law applies to its activities
Dechert is at the forefront of determining the international laws applicable to the governance of the internet.” Arif Hyder Ali Partner “
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