[Larwee]

The basic details about this RegisterFly mess have been covered. But some details didn't get mentioned. This articles covers some of the details that weren't spoken about very often. This is starting to sound like something out of a movie:

The landslide of bad news from Registerfly has continued, as ICANN created a forum for dispute resolution for this mess, and Registerfly customers desperately tried to shift their domains to other registrars before they vanished into cyberspace.

The romantic and professional break up between Kevin Medina and John Narusewicz, which had led to acriminonious and very public allegations of gross mismanagement of corporate funds that were frittered away on such vanities as male prostitutes and liposuction, and which resulted in a power struggle for control of the company, concluded with a thud.
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Narusewicz, Medina's former lover and Registerfly's corporate secretary, had sued Medina in federal court in New Jersey to remove Medina as CEO and force him to sell his stake in the company.

District Court Judge Peter Sheridan ruled that Medina could not be removed as CEO or forced to liquidate his holdings under New Jersey law, but, in something of a face-saving move - under a federal statute that allows judges to advise litigants to appeal if the judge feels the law in question to be unsettled - recommended that the plaintiff Narusewicz do so.

Not that it matters; the decision effectively closes the books on Registerfly. Although the judge expressed unease with the results of the decision, the appeals process is far too lengthy and unwieldy to save a company as near to dissolution as Registerfly.

The silver lining in this black cloud is that ICANN has finally acknowledged publicly that it is in fact responsible for ensuring that accredited registrars live up to their responsibilities in the Registrar Accreditation Agreements (RAA). The Registerfly fiasco has generated such an overwhelming outcry that ICANN has pulled its head out of the sand, and - get this – is actually trying to help people out of this mess, albeit with pretty mixed results.

Initially, ICANN denied everything, even refusing to post negative comments about Registerfly in its blog. Denial, of course, is always the first stage; grudging acknowledgement follows. After extolling the virtues of the registry competition engendered by the accreditation process, Paul Levins, ICANN's new point man for this train wreck, admitted (ICANN Blog) last week that ICANN bears reponsibility for enforcing its accreditation standards.

Subsequent blog entries detail a plethora of technical glitches on the Registerfly side that prevent authcodes from being released, followed by some aggressive finger wagging by ICANN. The failure to release authcodes has been a major impediment to transferring domains to other registrars. The piddly statistics on domain transfers (ICANN Blog) provided by ICANN yesterday only reinforced a sense that ICANN's recent change of heart is oriented more toward future problems than toward Registerfly.

This link is to the complete article ICANN: we can help Registerfly mess | The Register