For the last 30 years, NominetUK has managed the ".uk" domain space (see Thirty years of Nominet Guardians of .UK by Paul Fletcher 27 May 2026). For the last 25 of those years, its Dispute Resolution Service ("DRS") has resolved disputes over entitlement to ".uk" domain names. From 7 July 2026, the DRS will be managed by the Arbitration and Mediation Centre ("AMC") of the World Intellectual Property Organization ("WIPO").
The WIPO is one of five dispute resolution service providers that the ICANN ("Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers") has authorized to resolve gTLD (generic top-level domain) disputes. The WIPO also assists more than 85 national domain space operators to resolve ccTLD (country code top-level domain) disputes in their jurisdictions. More information on the WIPO's ccTLD services is available on the page headed "Protect your Intellectual Property online with WIPO’s ccTLD Services" on the WIPO's website.
Information on the changes to dispute resolution in the United Kindom after 7 July 2026 is available from both the WIPO and Nominet. The WIPO published the announcement "Changes to Dispute Resolution for .UK (United Kingdom)" on its website on 2 June 2026. Nominet published "Nominet’s DRS: New Administrators, same experts, policies, mediation and fees" on 2r May 2026. There is also a "Service Update to the DRS" on Nominet's website which was last updated on 8 June 2026.
Under "What's Changing and When" on that web page, Nominet states:
"From 7th July 2026, administration of DRS cases will transfer to World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), an established global provider of domain dispute resolution services. This change forms part of the .UK Standardisation programme, which modernises how .UK is managed.
The policy and overall direction of the DRS will remain with Nominet, as a core part of our guardianship of .UK."
Under the column heaading "What's Staying the Same", Nominet writes:
- "The DRS Policy remains unchanged, including the types of disputes that can be raised.Nominet’s trained mediators will continue offering free mediation.
- The composition of the Experts panel who make independent decisions will remain unchanged.
- Decision review will continue to be conducted by the review group within the Experts panel, no other party will review decisions.
- Appeals against decisions will still be possible as they are currently under the DRS Policy.
- Nominet’s teams will continue engaging with registrars as they do today to identify the appropriate registrant if they are behind a proxy service.
- Nominet’s teams will continue with the established process to implement the experts’ decisions."
- "DRS cases will be raised and managed through WIPO’s system.
- WIPO’s experienced case managers will guide each dispute through the process, as per the DRS Policy.
- All DRS decisions (existing and new) will be searchable and available on WIPO’s website.
- Eventually, all decisions will also be available on nominet.uk and the Decision Search Tool will be retired.
- The same fees will apply as before, however no VAT will be applied. Payment will be made through WIPO."
Further information on domain names generally can be obtained from the "Domain Name Resources" page on NIPC Branding. Anyone wishing to discuss this article may call me on +44 (0)20 7404 5252 during UK office hours or send me a message through my contact form at any time.
