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Findlay Steele Associates Ltd

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The Mediation Stage

The mediation stage is cloaked in confidentiality so we aren't allowed to give a blow by blow account of exactly what was said and by whom. We don't know what would happen if we did, but we ain't going to risk finding out!

What we can say though is that it consisted of a series of telephone discussions with a very nice lady from Nominet called Anna. The discussions centred around ways in which the dispute could be settled amicably to the satisfaction of both parties. We agreed that a commercial resolution might be possible so we started discussing terms.

Aside from the facts that the domain name is exactly relevant to our business name and we registered it in good faith, our view is that it is a valuable business asset. The fact it is a three letter domain name alone gives it a high commercial value - there are very few (if any) of them left now. We also considered the size of the other FSA, the size they are likely to become and their last year's budget as publicised in their annual accounts. Taking all these facts into account, we came up with a figure and gave it to Anna The Mediator.

Anna The Mediator duly passed this onto the other FSA who said no - too high. This response (about ten days later) was relayed back to us. The overall flavour of the response from the other FSA is that the fact it's a three letter domain name and a valuable business asset is neither here nor there. Basically, we should give it to them for peanuts simply because they are so big and powerful they claim confusion over the misdirection of a few e-mails.

Our response was to say that OK, if they say the figure is too high, have they got an alternative one for us to consider? It seemed they hadn't. So, Anna The Mediator, bless her, went away to talk to the other FSA again. Let's just say that the gulf between their idea of it's worth and our idea of it's worth is wider than that of Mexico. We dropped our figure considerably, but the other FSA refused to up theirs one penny.

So, bye bye Anna the Mediator, hello Senior Executive of Nominet the Decision Maker.

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