On 16 December 2010 the FAS held hearings in the framework of initiated proceedings on infringement of the federal law №135-FZ “On Protection of Competition” in the course of domain names registration in ccTLD .РФ. The defendants were registrars accredited by the Coordination center for ccTLD .РФ: ANO “Regionalny setevoy Informatsionny Tsentr”, ZAO “Regionalny Setevoy Informatsionny Tsentr” (trde mark RU_CENTER), OOO “RELKOM.DELOVAYA SET”, ZAO “Demos-Internet”, ZAO “Registrator”, ZAO “Elvis-Telekom”.
Ms. Elena Gartseva, the RU-CENTER lawyer, admitted at the hearings that RU-CENTER had failed to sign engineering agreements with other registrars. “Ordinary client agreements were signed with other registrars,” – informed Gartseva. To recap, previously the chief of the RU-CENTER press-service, Andrey Vorobiev, repeatedly asserted that RU-CENTER concluded engineering agreements with four registrars: according to Vorobiev, “Engagement of small registrars by the large ones was necessary in order to bypass the restriction set by the CC regarding the number of domains to be registered by a single registrar.” In fact, along with registration of domains in compliance with Terms and Conditions of domain names registration in ccTLD .РФ, RU-CENTER acted as a regular client to other registrars and registered domain names in ccTLD .РФ for itself. In light of the CC’s decision of 30 September 2010 regarding the ban on change of domain ownership effective for one year, even a domain name gained at the auction did not ensure a scrupulous buyer to become a legitimate domain name rightholder. Registrants who considered the rule for setting auctions unsatisfactory also spoke at the hearings. As of the date of FAS hearings, 14 applications were submitted by individuals and legal entities.
Other registrars mentioned in this case informed that they worked in compliance with client- and- partner agreements signed with RU-CENTER. The CC’s representative requested the FAS to review all the submitted facts and reasons as well as seize means acquired through the malpractice. Upon hearings, the FAS ruled to postpone the case proceedings until the third decade of January 2011. The FAS have requested additional documents due to the fact that the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service detected in defendants’ activities a breach of Article 14 of the Federal law FZ-135 “On Protection of Competition”, namely the ban on unscrupulous competition.
