What happens if the Registrar Files for Bankrupcy under chapter 11

11 is a bad number is'nt it ?

[digitalbrain]

What will happen to all domains registered if the registrar files for bankrupcy under chapter 11 and goes out of business ?.
Will all the domains be released ?

[Lisa]

There is a prevision in the Registrar business plan they submitted to ICANN as to what will happen. They are forced to plan for this. So your domain would be transfer to another registrar and they would support you from there.

[yevlesh]

I've been there. I had an OpenSRS registar I was using close up shop. Without any problems, I was able to transfer to another OpenSRS registar.

[Lisa]

OpenSRS is a Registrar themselves. You mean an OpenSRS reseller. If a reseller of a registrar goes out of business it is easier because the registrar is still there.

[digitalbrain]

Has any instances occured till now where an registrar has gone bankrupt ? What happens to the domains on hold and the domains that are about to expire ? . Will the websites of these domains go down ?

[Lisa]

"All West" went bankrupt last year. I still see them alive and kicking now so I am not sure what happened there. But they must have come back. But for a time they were not answering emails or phone calls. Because a registrar is so removed from the daily operations of running a domain there is not much impact a registrar will have if they go out of business. The Registry is doing most of the important stuff in the first place. All a registrar does is collect money and interface the customer to the Registry. So if a registrar were to go bankrupt the domains that registrar handled would still operate just fine. It may be hard to update whois information while a new registrar takes over the records and you may not be able to update information like nameservers. But in time that would all be working again when a new registrar starts handling the customer again.

[mivox]

"All West" went bankrupt last year. I still see them alive and kicking now so I am not sure what happened there.

With all the vagaries of bankruptcy law, many businesses will declare bankruptcy, "reorganize" their company, and continue on in business... usually involving firing a bunch of people and being forced to sell off any unnecessary assets.

Or, an investor could come in and buy up the company assets (with the purchase $$ going towards the debts that led to the bankruptcy in the first place), and take over the company operations.

Either way, the bankrupt company can continue to exist... and I'm sure there are many other variations on that theme.

I'd assume with a registrar, they'd be required to give notice to registrants wtih sufficient time to transfer the domains.

[Tapolyai]

Chapter 11 is not closing doors.

It is a part of the bankrupcy laws - it provides protection from creditors while "restructuring" the business under court supervision.