But what can nominet do about this now? It could be a dangerous time to be bidding on domains on D/L or Flip without knowing how they were registered in the first instance?
Registrar agreement
https://media.nominet.uk/wp-content...15.232837395.1599571807-1763938795.1589638806
E.3.6. You may, no earlier than 30 days after the expiry of a domain name on an Accredited Channel Partner Tag, take steps to transfer the domain name into your name, provided that you have previously informed the Registrant that you intend to do this and
obtained their explicit consent to your doing so. Such consent must be obtained no earlier than 30 days before the date on which the domain name is due to expire, and no later than 30 days after the date on which the domain name expired. Even if you transfer a domain name in these circumstances, the original Registrant of the domain name must always retain the right to renew the domain name in question as set out in paragraph B.1.13 above.
You may not transfer a domain name into the name of a third party under this paragraph;
This was clearly not adhered to, not by FastHosts and the registrars who signed the registrar agreement would have been well aware FastHost had no right to transfer the domains to them, saying "I didn't know it wasn't allowed" isn't a defence when you signed a contract with these terms on
They can choose to do the below
"I. The Contract entitles us to put your contract into Special Status or to take certain steps including termination."
"Sanctions
(a) degrade the responsiveness of any or all Systems;
(b) reduce look up thresholds or access to any or all Systems;
(c) remove access to any or all incentives, such as the ability to make changes to Registrant
names, optout of Registrant communications or to transfer expired domain names in the
Registrar’s own name;
(d) remove the ability to register new domains;
(e) suspend, cancel or transfer one or more domain names;
(f) reverse transactions carried out by you;
(g) restrict the ability to register deleted domains within a period following cancellation;
(h) remove eligibility for accreditation rights and other promotional activity(ies);
(i) remove the ability to make changes to the Registrant name during the expiry period;
(j) remove your ability to use one or more Tags that you have registered with us;
(l) impose credit restrictions as per the Credit and Payment Terms; and
(m) make public any sanctions applied or measures applied to a Registrar.
"
I believe e and f should come in to play and the domains should be returned to the FastHost registrants and renewed for 1 year as they didn't get their full time to renew this time around
Whether Nominet decide to do that or to take any more steps against registrars who participated we shall see but it's within their power to do so