[lac-discuss-en] Fwd: ICANN News Alert -- U.S. Court Quashes Attempts to Attach ccTLDs: Federal Judge Agrees with ICANN

[Carlton Samuels]

Whew!  This could have been a mess, had it gone the other way.

-CAS

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Carlton A Samuels
Mobile: 876-818-1799
*Strategy, Planning, Governance, Assessment & Turnaround*
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  [image: ICANN] <http://www.icann.org/> News Alert

https://www.icann.org/news/announcement-2-2014-11-12-en
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U.S. Court Quashes Attempts to Attach ccTLDs: Federal Judge Agrees with
ICANN

12 November 2014

A U.S. federal court has agreed with the Internet Corporation for Assigned
Names and Numbers (ICANN) that the country code Top-Level Domains (ccTLDs)
are not property subject to attachment.

Claimants filed writs of attachment to seize from ICANN, the ccTLDs for
Iran (.IR), Syria (.SY) and North Korea (.KP), (as well as
internationalized top-level domains in non-ASCII characters for Iran and
Syria) in order to satisfy judgments the claimants obtained in US courts
against these countries.

ICANN sought to quash the writs of attachment citing ICANN's technical
coordination role in the domain name system (DNS) and arguing that ccTLDs
are not subject to attachment.

"We are pleased that the court ruled in our favor on the grounds that the
ccTLDs are not property, subject to attachment", said John Jeffrey, ICANN's
General Counsel and Secretary. "The court's ruling demonstrates a technical
understanding of the DNS, and the role of ccTLDs in the single, global,
interoperable Internet.

To read the U.S. District Court ruling, go here:
https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/order-memo-granting-motion-to-quash-writs-10nov14-en.pdf
[PDF, 346 KB]

To read ICANN's legal filings, go here:
https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/icann-various-2014-07-30-en

To read the original "Writs of Attachment," go here:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_dOI5puxRA9M3hweE9Eel9mVTQ/edit?pli=1