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.africa to finally go live after judge denies injunction

Kevin Murphy, February 10, 2017, 12:39:46 (UTC), Domain Policy

A Los Angeles court has rejected a demand for a preliminary injunction preventing ICANN delegating .africa, meaning the new gTLD can go live soon.
Judge Howard Halm ruled February 3, in documents published last night, that the “covenant not to sue” signed by every new gTLD applicant is enforceable and that Africans are being harmed as long as .africa is stuck in legal limbo.
The ruling comes two and a half years after ZA Central Registry, the successful of the two .africa applicants, signed its Registry Agreement with ICANN.
Rival applicant DotConnectAfrica, rejected because it has no African government support, is suing ICANN for fraud, alleging that it failed to follow its own rules and unfairly favored ZACR from the outset.
Unfortunately, the ruling does not address the merits of these claims. It merely says that DCA is unlikely to win its suit due to the covenant it signed.
Halm based his decision on the precedent in Ruby Glen v ICANN, the Donuts lawsuit that seeks to stop ICANN awarding .web to Verisign. The judge in that case ruled last November that Donuts signed away its right to sue.
An earlier judge in the DCA v ICANN case had ruled — based at least in part on a misunderstanding of the facts — that the covenant was unenforceable, but that decision now seems to have been brushed aside.
Halm was not convinced that DCA would suffer irreparable harm if ZACR got given .africa, writing:

The .Africa gTLD can be re-delegated to DCA in the event DCA prevails in this litigation… Further, it appears that any interim harm to DCA can be remedied by monetary damages

He balanced this against the harm of NOT delegating .africa:

The public interest also weighs in favor of denying the injunction because the delay in the delegation of the .Africa gTLD is depriving the people of Africa of having their own unique gTLD.

So what now?
ICANN said in a statement: “In accordance with the terms of its Registry Agreement with ZACR for .AFRICA, ICANN will now follow its normal processes towards delegation.”
As of this morning, ZACR’s .africa bid is officially still marked as “On Hold” by ICANN, though this is likely to change shortly.
Assuming ZACR has already completed pre-delegation testing, delegation itself could be less than a week away.
If DCA’s record is anything to go by, it seems unlikely that this latest setback will be enough to get it to abandon its cause.
Its usual MO whenever it receives an adverse decision or criticism is to double down and start screaming about conspiracies.
While the injunction was denied, the lawsuit itself has not been thrown out, so there’s still plenty of time for more of that.
You can read Halm’s ruling here (pdf).

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Comments (3)

  1. Rubens Kuhl says:
    February 10, 2017 at 2:04 pm

    She can join Trump in making allegations of judicial rulings that endanger the American people.
    (Ooops, was supposed to be Africans, right?)

    Reply
  2. Carl says:
    February 10, 2017 at 2:20 pm

    Finally .Africa for African continent and it’s people. Domain industry is getting wider in extentions, that’s good.

    Reply
  3. Volker Greimann says:
    February 13, 2017 at 10:54 am

    Soon on Twitter:
    “The opinion of this so-called judge, which essentially takes this important resource away from the African people, is ridiculous and will be overturned!”
    Make dot dotafrica great again!

    Reply

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