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Fee reduction extended for .eu dispute proceedings

27 Feb. 2013

Brussels and Prague, 18 December 2012 – The fee for a basic .eu Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) procedure will continue to be cut by 50% until the end of 2013, announced the .eu registry EURid and the Czech Arbitration Court (CAC), the institution appointed to rule on .eu domain name proceedings.

Since the introduction of the reduced fee in July 2012, the average number of ADR cases filed per month has risen by 80%.

“This increase does seem to indicate that there was some sort of financial barrier that prevented some parties from claiming their rights through .eu ADR proceedings,” commented Czech Arbitration Court Board Member, Petr Hostas.

“Lowering this barrier was a good step that enabled those parties to access the ADR procedure and I sincerely hope that this trend will continue going forward.”

EURid’s General Manager Marc Van Wesemael added, “At EURid, we want anyone with a legitimate prior rights claim to be able to challenge a .eu registration. Making the .eu ADR process more affordable, and therefore accessible, is one way of doing this.”

Why ADR
People can challenge a .eu registration if they believe they have a prior right to the domain name and the current holder has registered the name for speculative or abusive purposes. Although they can do this through a European court, EURid offers the fast and convenient .eu ADR procedure through the independent CAC. No travel is required as all cases are conducted online and by email, and in 21 official EU languages. Cases take an average of four months to resolve.

EURid appointed the CAC in 2005 as its ADR provider. In order to make .eu ADR decisions, the CAC selects one or more panellists from its list of 136 accredited international experts.

In numbers
For the first three quarters of 2012, 35 .eu dispute resolution cases were filed. The Czech Arbitration Court published 25 ADR decisions, of which all were in favour of the complainant.

More information about the new .eu ADR price structure is available at eu.adr.eu.

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