In 2005, I have registered a .com domain with my name, for 2 years. That domain expired in 2007, and as I was going to change webhosts, I never bothered doing it before the domain registration expired, and my previous webhost never bothered telling me I should have done it 1 month beforehand. Now, I have lost my domain. I was expecting it to be released again after 2 months, but it is just being used by firms which are obviously expecting me to contact them and pay a rip off to get it back. Obviously, I am just an individual, but imagine, if I had a business, and was losing business day after day. I really want to sue my previous webhost, but I live in Ireland. Can anbody help, or suggest something, or if you are a solicitor specialized in customer protection, would you contact me, please? Thanks!

This is really two separate questions.

The first is: how do I sue a UK-based company, in Ireland? That's pretty simple; you can issue a claim in Ireland against UK company if the service is provided in Ireland.

The UK-company can ask for the matter to be transferred to their 'local' court and it almost certainly would be because the agreement was almost certainly under UK law.

Or you can issue a claim in the UK courts - it does not matter where your country of origin is, as longas you pay the fee.

These days, the physical location of the court is pretty irrelevant, most pre-trial matetrs are dealt with in writing or by phone - only the trial requires you to be there.