Afilias

History

2020

Closing of the transaction on sale of domain company assets of Donuts

The Donuts company owning a large portfolio of new general top-level domains announced closing of the transaction on acquisition of domain company assets of Afilias, reported the Domain Name Wire resource. On December 30, 2020 reported about it in the Coordination center of domains. RU/.RF (CC). The amount of purchase still remains unsolved.

About two weeks ago the question of this transaction was included in the agenda of a meeting of the Board of Directors of ICANN corporation. Presumably, the possible conflict of interest became the reason. As specified in CC, the controlling stake of Donuts belongs to Abry Partners company which adviser was the previous president of ICANN Fadi Shekhade until recently. In addition, the head of Donuts for December, 2020 is Akram of Atal holding earlier a post of the head of Department of the general top-level domains of ICANN corporation. But as a result the Board of Directors of ICANN did not find the bases to object to the conclusion of the transaction, and it, as well as was planned, was closed before the termination of year.

Sale of domain company assets of Donuts

On November 23, 2020 the Coordination center of the national domain of the Internet (CC) reported that the Donuts company agreed about acquisition of domain assets of Afilias which acts as registry of more than 20 general top-level domains and is a technical operator over 200 domain zones. Donuts, in turn, manages the greatest number of the general top-level domains. Consolidation of assets means that Donuts in this or that form will control more than 450 domain zones.

The Domain Incite resource managed to receive the short comment of the head of Donuts Akram Atalla (in the past – heads of Department of the general top-level domains of ICANN corporation). That, in particular, told that the transaction was not result of long negotiations between the companies. As it became clear, Afilias already throughout some time looked for the buyer for the domain assets and came with the relevant proposal to the different companies. Donuts considered this offer interesting. The amount for which assets, naturally, will be purchased is not disclosed.

Also Akram of Atal reported that Donuts does not purchase registration business Afilias and division on software development for mobile devices. Besides, also the fact that Donuts will not have any relation to results of the procedure of independent review of results of an auction for which the rights of management of the domain.WEB were offered is separately stipulated. As you know, the auction was won by modest company NU DOT CO LLC, having paid for the domain 135 million dollars. Soon after that it became clear that purchase was completely financed by VeriSign company. The Afilias company also applied for.WEB and considered the event abuse of regulations of ICANN, and therefore achieved the procedure of independent review. If this procedure confirms correctness of Afilias, then the right of management of the domain will be acquired by this company, but not Donuts.

At last, Akram of Atal noted that he considers absolutely groundless concerns that merge of assets of Donuts and Afilias will create a certain monster of the domain market. He emphasized that even after completion of the transaction (and it is going to be closed until the end of 2020) under control of Donuts there will be less than 15 million domain names – much less, than it is registered in the domain.COM.^[1]

Notes