"A country-code, top-level domain is owned by the community, and ownership is a legal concept," he says. The fact of possession has legal weight and should work against any irregular transfer of ownership.

Further scenarios suggested were even wilder. One involved the original owner having a gun pointed at his head, begging ICANN to allow the domain to be transferred to save his life. The consensus was that the transfer should go ahead, but that a return to the original owner should be considered later.

As a last resort, ICANN can take a domain back and do its own re-delegation. But the panel consensus was this should only happen if the rules laid out in RFC 1591 were breached.