Like most companies we occasionally become involved in litigation. In most cases we have been defending our register, registrant information or processes to protect the .uk register and .uk registrants.

Tackling bad practice

In 1997 we sued a company and individual who had, we believed, misused the WHOIS. As part of the litigation the court permitted a search of his property and an order freezing the defendant's finances. There is more detail on this page.

In 2002 we sued two individuals and their companies for misusing our names and trade marks in a pressure sales scheme which we considered to be a scam. We obtained an order in which the individuals involved promised to stay out of the domain name industry for good. Read more if you are interested.

In 2003 we detected an attack on our WHOIS service, and shortly afterwards a large number documents that resembled fake invoices were sent by "UK Internet Registry". Our investigations traced this back to two Australian individuals. We were able to sue them, prevent further mail-outs, have the data deleted and obtained the joint-highest punitive damages order ever given in Australia.

In 2004 fraudulent invoices were sent out by "Domain Registrar Services", which was linked to Peter Francis-Macrae. We obtained a civil injunction against Mr Francis-Macrae and worked with police. He later received a criminal sentence for this and other activities. More information.

Defending our procedures

In the Pitman case in 1997 two companies which used the name 'Pitman' in their business name were disputing who should have the <pitman.co.uk> domain name. You can read what happened.

In 2001 we were sued in relation to <psinet.co.uk>, which had been registered in 1995 before we took over the .uk register. The judge found in our favour, and more details are available on this page.

In 2005 a company called Cyberbritain Group Ltd tried to commence a judicial review case against us following the decision of the Dispute Resolution Service in relation to <itunes.co.uk>. Their application was denied by the court at the first hearing.

Also in 2005 Alliance Francaise de Londres Ltd made an application to obtain an injunction against us - but then withdrew as soon as it went to court. Read more.