Section 5.2.3 of the proposed
agreement specifes a fee to be
paid to the old Registry Operator by the new one
if at the
end of the term a different Registry operator is chosen by
ICANN.
The amount of the fee is enormous - a short calculation
shows that it amounts
more than one year of the total turnover
of the registry. This fee is absolutely
unjustified. Its only effect is to make
a transfer impossible, or if transfer
there is, the new registry
operator would have to squeeze even more money out
of the TLD.
The inverse is justified. Registrations are pre-payments over
one
or several years. This means that a significant portion of
of the fees collected
by the incumbent Registry Operator are
actually for the period handled by the
successor.
The uncumbent should transfer these funds to the successor.