As reported on news site TheRegister.co.uk, Strato and Network Solutions (NSI) used to be partners, with Strato registering its .com, .net and .org domains through NSI. That agreement ended in January and Strato now wishes to transfer these domains to another German company called Cronon.
But according to Strato, NSI has approached Strato clients, "for the purpose of alienating and enticing them in an unlawful manner in order to force them to change to NSI." Strato took legal action, and a German district court granted an injunction against the US registrar.
On 19th January Strato announced that it had asked the FTC to intervene in the dispute. The German Federal Department of Trade and Industry has also been requested to represent German clients at the FTC.
According to Rochus Wegener, board member of Strato, "NSI is employing dubious means to take the clients of the Strato Corporation as "Domain Hostages" in order to extort expensive and unnecessary contractual agreements. We will fight against this with all legal, operational and technical means".