Kentucky Domain Name Seizure Case Back to Trial Court

September 24, 2010 | News Category: Gaming Law

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The Kentucky domain name seizure case has been going on for quite some time now, with no final resolution. There had been questions from the court regarding whether iMEGA (Interactive Media Entertainment & Gaming Association) and the IGC (Interactive Gaming Council) had the authority, or at least, the legal standing to represent the online gambling sites.

In order to determine whether the IGC and iMEGA do in fact have legal standing to represent the international online gambling domain name holders that the state of Kentucky is attempting to seize, the case has been sent back from the Kentucky Supreme Court to the trial court.

The court has now ruled twice that the actual owners of the online gambling operations need to appear in court in order to establish legal standing. It seems that this is the only way that they may be able to prevent having their online gambling domain names seized from their online gambling websites.

In the hopes that the court would recognize the legal standing of iMEGA and the IGC, a few online gambling businesses who own some of the domain names in question stepped forward, giving these trade associations permission to represent them. The judges, however, were not totally satisfied that those who stepped forward as the domain name owners did in fact own the domain names in question.

This case has now been bouncing around the Kentucky courts since 2008 when Kentucky attempted to seize 141 online gambling domain names of online gambling sites that had operated in the State of Kentucky. Currently, the case is getting held up on technicalities, which leaves the main issues of the case untouched for quite some time, while the technicalities are being ironed out.

iMEGA had requested from the Kentucky Court of Appeals in March 2010 to return the case to the Kentucky Supreme Court. The Appeals Court did this, and left the final decision in the hands of the Supreme Court.

The Kentucky Supreme Court judges noted that iMEGA had "numerous (and) compelling" arguments for the online domain name holders, however, the court noted that they could not issue a ruling, or consider these arguments until legal standing had been satisfied.

It is unclear what direction this case will take at this time, and how iMEGA and the IGC intend to satisfy the court's requirement to prove legal standing.