Former CEO Kevin Medina has regained control of the domain name registrar, which has less than a week to straighten out accounts with ICANN

by Steve Hamm and Megan Tucker

In a legal decision that stunned even the lawyers for the victor, a U.S. District Court judge on Mar. 8 handed over the embattled Web registrar Registerfly.com to the executive who was running it when it began to founder. Judge Peter Sheridan ruled in favor of defendant Kevin Medina, who had been chief executive of the parent company, Unifiednames, before he was fired by two other board members on Feb. 12.

It wasn't immediately clear what impact the ruling would have on the company's future and the more than 200,000 Web site owners who have registered their domain names through Registerfly.com. Concerns over the company have arisen in recent months amid complaints from customers who said they weren't receiving services they'd paid for and a brewing battle for control among owners. Domain-name registrars such as Registerfly.com receive fees for registering Web site names and ensuring they remain current.

"Back in the Driver's Seat"
Medina retook control of the company immediately, but, as of late Mar. 8, the Web site still featured a notice, placed by John Naruszewicz, Medina's longtime business partner and successor as CEO. The statement includes an apology to customers for recent turmoil and assurances that management is "taking every necessary measure to address the problem at its source."

Eugenie Temmler, Medina's attorney, of the Upper Montclair (N.J.) firm of Rabner, Allcorn, Baumgart & Ben-Asher, says Medina "is confident he will be able to correct the problems caused by Mr. Naruszewicz's attempt to take over the company." Interviewed in a Newark (N.J.) courtroom after the ruling, Medina was pleased: "This decision puts me back in the driver's seat," he said. "I believe I have built a lot of customers that will weather the storm."

Naruszewicz, one of the two who had fired Medina and taken control of the company, doesn't plan to appeal the judge's decision. "We lost and it's all over," he says. "The company will implode in days and 1 million domain names are going to be lost. It's a damned shame." Current and former customers reacted with shock on Web forums and e-mails: "This is very bad. Registerfly will be shut down soon," predicts Justin Kulhawick, a former customer who last year set up a Web site, Registerflies.com, to call attention to the company's failings. Among the company's customers are the government of Thailand, the Easter Seals charity, and pop star Michael Jackson.

ICANN Accreditation at Risk....

Read the rest of the article on BusinessWeek.com

This gets weirder and weirder!

Kevin Medina is one bad dude.

Is he the judges son-in-law?  

I wonder what the GoDaddy CEO has to say!

edit: Bob Parsons hasn't commented yet, maybe too early.

Good video here http://www.brightcove.com/title.jsp?title=512723016

I'll bet the ranch Medina will start up under another name with the cash nicked from his previous clients.

wow this will impact negatively a lot of people, if the predictions of registerfirefly's doom bear true
have to include this in my infamous top 10 hey forwardone ??