April 20, 2018

What has happened?

On 28 March 2017, the EU Commission issued a ‘Notice to Stakeholders’ on the ‘Withdrawal of the United Kingdom and the EU Rules on .eu domain names’ (“the Notice”).

Article 4(2)(b) of  the .eu Domain Name Regulation (Regulation (EC) No 733/2002) provides that the following persons only are eligible to register .eu domain names:

• undertakings having their registered office, central administration or principal place of business within the EU;
• organisations established within the EU (without prejudice to the application of national law); and
• natural persons resident within the EU.

In essence, the Notice states that in the absence of transitional arrangements, once the UK formally ceases to be an EU Member State on 29 March 2019 the registration of .eu domain names by UK nationals and entities that are established in the UK but not the EU will automatically become revocable, because registrants will no longer satisfy the registration requirements set out above. Moreover, such revocation may be implemented without any form of dispute resolution mechanism – i.e. the act of revocation itself may simply be automatic.

In addition, the Notice confirms that following the UK’s withdrawal from the EU, it will no longer be possible to rely on UK-only rights (e.g. UK national registered trade marks) when challenging .eu domain name registrations that are speculative or made in bad faith.

Why should I care?

Clearly, if the approach set out in the Notice is adopted (and the draft Withdrawal Agreement first published on 28 February – see our notes here and here – makes no reference to .eu domains), any UK-only entity or national with a .eu domain registered as at 29 March 2019 may lose its right to continue using that domain overnight.

Any party potentially affected by this development should start making contingency plans now, especially if a .eu domain registration is a business critical asset (e.g. where a business’ primary website is hosted at a .eu domain and/or is used as the basis of business email accounts). This will include the need not only to identify and obtain the registration of an appropriate alternative non-.eu domain, but to also factor in time to update any relevant business stationery and marketing collateral, as well as to publicise the relevant change. Those entities which form part of a corporate group would be well advised to explore the scope for transferring a .eu domain to an appropriate group company which does satisfy the requirements of the Regulation prior to the end of March 2019.

Even where a .eu domain is not itself considered business critical, UK-only entities should review their domain name portfolios to identify any .eu domain registrations that may be affected by this change in order to take appropriate steps to minimise the risk of such registrations becoming available to registration by third party cyber-squatters and the like, especially given that UK-only rights will no longer be capable of forming the basis of a challenge to .eu domain registration.