Lawsuit against ICANN over .org domain price increases

Since January 2024, the US registrar Namecheap Inc. has been in dispute with the Internet registry ICANN before the Superior Court of the State of California (Case No. 24SMCP00066). At the center of this civil dispute, which follows an Independent Review Process (IRP), is the removal of so-called “price caps” in the registry contracts for the generic top level domains .org, .info and .biz. And Namecheap can now claim a first partial success: the court decided to admit the lawsuit, thus opening the door for a decision on the merits. According to the court, the statement of claim contains a proper application pursuant to CCP §§ 1286.2 and 1286.4. ICANN had objected that Namecheap was making additional demands on ICANN that went far beyond the scope of the arbitration award from the IRP proceedings because, for example, the non-binding recommendations of the arbitration tribunal had been converted into binding requirements. Namecheap now has until December 27, 2024 to submit further pleadings and declarations; a hearing is scheduled for January 24, 2025 in Santa Monica.

Source: https://www.icann.org/