Breaking: Court extinguishes ZACR as party to .Africa Litigation, Denies its PI Reconsideration
The court has on 20th June 2016 denied ZACR ‘Motion for reconsideration and vacate Preliminary Injunction [PDF]’ ruling that was granted to DCA Trust on 12 April 2016.
This means that the will proceed to full trial. ICANN had also joined in support of ZACR’s Motion and thus the court order means both ZACR and ICANN have lost a significant fight.
The Court says in the above order the following:
On April 26, 2016, ZACR filed a Motion to Dismiss all claims asserted against it. On May 6, 2016, ZACR filed the current Motion for Reconsideration regarding the Court’s Order re Preliminary Injunction. ICANN joined this motion on May 10, 2016.
Since then, the Court has granted ZACR’s Motion to Dismiss in its entirety, thereby extinguishing ZACR’s role a party to the action. Therefore, the Court denies as moot ZACR’s motion for reconsideration, and addresses the motion only as it pertains to ICANN.
The order comes a few days after ZACR was dismissed as a party to the case leaving ICANN as the only defendant, read our blog here. The order reads:
“… the Court finds Plaintiff’s first request against ZACR (i.e., that the Court declare the registry agreement null and void) unnecessary, as a favorable ruling on its (DCA Trust) claims against ICANN will result in the relief it seeks …”
The court order further stated the following reasons in denying the Preliminary Injunction (PI) reconsideration that ZACR submitted:
On correction of ‘factual error’:-
“At this stage of the litigation, it is reasonable to infer that the IRP Panel found that ICANN’s rejection of Plaintiff’s application at the geographic names evaluation phase was improper, and that the application should proceed to the delegation phase.”
“The Court finds that the error in its factual finding was not determinative to its ultimate conclusion that there are serious questions going toward Plaintiff’s likelihood of success on the merits.”
On Irreparable Injury:-
“…however, there is still adequate evidence provided by Plaintiff (i.e., loss of business funding, etc.) to find irreparable injury on the part of Plaintiff. Therefore, the Court’s finding regarding balance of the hardships also remains unchanged.”
Commenting on the court action, a DCA representative said,
“DCA is very pleased about the outcome of the PI reconsideration. We were confident that the court would find any corrected facts or justifications for irreparable injury by ZACR and ICANN would change the merits of DCA’s case.
The court order linked here is also embedded below
http://dotconnectafrica.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/113-Order-Denying-ZACR-Motion-for-Reconsideration.pdf
The DCA’s Opposition to ZACR Motion for Reconsideration documents can be found here.
The DCA vs ICANN court filings are accessible at the following websites: ICANN and DCA Trust
